


collateral damage

by kitseybarbours



Category: Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: Angst, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, Hurt/Comfort, Implied Sexual Content, M/M, Mild Gore, Post-Canon, Self-Harm, Slow Burn, Suicidal Thoughts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-23
Updated: 2016-06-18
Packaged: 2018-06-03 22:52:28
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 22,519
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6630316
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kitseybarbours/pseuds/kitseybarbours
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Ren and Hux are thrown together in the aftermath of the Order's defeat.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [obviouslyelementary](https://archiveofourown.org/users/obviouslyelementary/gifts).



> Written for the May 2016 Kylux Exchange, with the prompt "Learning to love each other after hating each other"; I took that and, um, ran with it! Apologies to [obviouslyelementary](http://archiveofourown.org/users/obviouslyelementary/pseuds/obviouslyelementary) for going literally 20k+ words over the minimum, but hey — thanks for the inspiring prompt. ;) As usual, only the minor/background characters are mine.
> 
> Starting next week, new chapters will be posted every Friday. Before we begin, though — thanks to my beloved [Redcap64](http://archiveofourown.org/users/Redcap64/pseuds/Redcap64) for falling asleep during chapter 5 at 1:30 a.m. that one time; thanks also, as ever, to ma chère [birdling](https://archiveofourown.org/users/birdling/pseuds/birdling) for letting me force (ha, ha) this ship upon you once again. 
> 
> Finally, endless, _endless_ thanks and long-distance hugs go also to my wonderful betas, being my fellow self-professed Hux expert [finalizer-psytech](http://archiveofourown.org/users/FinalizerPsytech/) and my Cool Kylux Aunt™ [betts](http://archiveofourown.org/users/betts/pseuds/betts)! Your advice, encouragement and critical reading have made all the difference in the world, believe me. ❤︎

*

Night: the scavenger girl has been captured, but all in all the First Order’s attack on Takodana was a failure. The doors to the assembly room hiss open to admit General Hux. He hurries up the corridor as the hologram of Supreme Leader Snoke demands of Kylo Ren, “Where is the droid?”

On hearing the noise of the opening doors, Ren looks over his shoulder and feels a surge of anger: _Of course it’s Hux. Of course he’s here to watch me fail._ He turns hastily back to Snoke, still with no answer, as Hux strides up the few stairs to the dais. The general shoots Kylo Ren a disdainful glance: his face registers the slightest trace of surprise at seeing the knight without his mask for the first time, before quickly returning to its previous expression of haughtiness and surety. Ren fumes as Hux takes a step forward and speaks.

“ _Ren_ believed it was no longer valuable to us — that the girl was all we needed,” Hux informs Snoke with disapproval. His lip curls. “As a result, the droid has most likely been returned to the hands of the enemy.”

“And the base?” Snoke asks, his displeasure apparent.

Hux straightens up, his chest puffing out with self-importance as he triumphantly delivers his good news: “We tracked their reconnaissance ship to the Ileenium system, sir…”

As he carries on, Ren fixes his eyes on Hux’s back and sees red. Sometimes he appreciates the general’s uptight, imperious nature, the way he has of looking at Ren as if he’s an insignificant child — after all, it’s this that makes him hate Hux, and the hatred, he knows, makes him stronger. _Really, I should thank him._

Hux finishes his report, his haughty chin lifted proudly, and seems to grow more cavalier still when Snoke gives him the order to “Prepare the weapon.”

“Yes, Supreme Leader,” Hux says sycophantically. He turns back to Ren and shoots him a lofty smirk, brushing hard past his shoulder as he leaves. Ren clenches his fists. _I could destroy him in an instant._

“I can get the map,” Ren protests to Snoke once he’s sure Hux is out of earshot, unwilling to let the general hear him beg. “I just need your guidance.”

Snoke ignores this. “The girl. Bring her to me.”

*

“Every day I am amazed anew at Kylo Ren’s incompetence,” Hux gripes to Captain Phasma during a slow period in their shift later that night. “Not continuing the search for the droid — a surefire source of information! — and instead focusing his efforts on the _girl,_ a human being who cannot be _relied on_ to tell us _anything —_ it’s a blunder of the highest order.” He sighs, pressing his fingers to his temples. “He is a thoughtless, reckless _child_ , devoid entirely of impulse control — and, in light of new developments, possibly a _brain_ as well.” Hux grits his teeth in annoyance, staring angrily at the sky outside the bridge’s viewports as if each individual star has personally offended him.

“You’ve mentioned, sir,” Phasma comments mildly.

 “And his _lightsaber —_ for stars’ sake, I hope one day he manages to lop an arm off with it, rather than demolishing yet _more_ of my computer systems — archaic weapon, doesn’t even work properly…” Hux trails off in supreme irritation, apparently lacking words to express his overwhelming distaste. “I cannot understand how Leader Snoke ever expected me to treat that _brat_ as my equal.”

“It might be easier to deal with him if you were a little more…civil,” Phasma suggests.

It’s a testament to his respect for Phasma, as well as his absolute astonishment, that Hux doesn’t immediately rap out a reprimand for her not having addressed him as _sir._ No: the minor insult to his superior position has been entirely eclipsed by the abhorrent idea that he, General Brendol Hux II, youngest member _and_ top of his class at the Academy and now the commander of Starkiller Base, should stoop so low as to be _civil_ to _Kylo Ren,_ of all people. His eyes widen in offence and his mouth turns down as if tasting something bitter: _“Civil?”_ he repeats finally, as if the word is entirely foreign to him.

“Yes, sir,” Phasma replies calmly. “Maybe treat him with a little more respect. You’re perfectly capable of it with the rest of us, you know,” she adds, teasing but sincere: Hux is, truly, not a difficult man to work for. He commands respect and gives it in return, if you do your job properly and well — which, due to the training methods and the strict regulations Hux himself has designed and set in place, most everyone under his command does. It’s a self-fulfilling system and one that, Hux must admit, he is very proud of.

“But it’s _him,”_ Hux counters in disbelief. “He’s a _child!_ He throws _tantrums!”_

“Perhaps if you treated him more courteously he wouldn’t feel the need to lash out,” Phasma points out.

Hux scoffs, his nose wrinkling. “I highly doubt he’s doing it to get attention from me.” He sighs. “Entitled, selfish _terror —”_

Hux’s pocket datapad sounds. He pulls it out with impatience, and when he reads the screen he actually rolls his eyes. “You’ll never guess who requires my _attention,”_ he tells Phasma in vexation.

 “Good luck, sir. Remember: be _civil,”_ she encourages him.

Hux sighs louder. “I’ll do my best.”

*

“What is it now, Ren?” Hux calls, annoyed, rounding the corner to the interrogation room where he’s been summoned — and then he stops in his tracks.

Kylo Ren stands fuming in front of the sputtering, sparking mess of what was, until very recently, a bank of the finest computer systems in the galaxy. His broad black-clad shoulders are heaving with angry breaths. His fists are clenched tight — one around the hilt of his lightsaber, which is, alarmingly, ignited. The blade is a furious blood-red, crackling audibly with energy: Hux, standing on the threshold, recoils instinctively from the naked savage power of it.

But he ignores the lightsaber for a moment in order to take in the scene more clearly. Aside from the technological carnage, the cost of which he doesn’t even want to think about right now, there’s something else gravely wrong with this picture. _Ah —_ the torture chair in the middle of the room stands empty, the restraints popped open. Hux mentally scans the base’s database and determines that the girl from Jakku was the former inhabitant of this cell, and that yes, Ren was assigned to extract information from her: _but what happened?_

“Explain yourself.” It’s not a request, it’s an order. To stop himself throttling Ren with them Hux tucks his gloved hands behind his back, and he waits.

“It’s the girl.” Ren’s deep voice is distorted by the mask and by his rage: he sounds frightful, deranged.

“What _about_ the girl?” Hux raps out, fixing Ren with a venomous glare. When the knight doesn’t reply for a moment, Hux snaps, “ _Now,_ Ren. My patience is wearing thin.”

“She escaped,” Ren says.

“Well, I can _see that,_ thank you,” Hux retorts furiously. _“How?_ How could you let this happen? You were under orders to get the _map_ from her, not set her free!”

“It wasn’t me!” Ren roars, incensed. The lightsaber is still in his hand, and it seems to blaze more brightly with his anger. Hux swallows hard and steels himself.

“Then who is responsible for this? Which _imbecile_ took our prisoner for a walk?” Hux demands. “Are you suggesting to me that she overpowered her _armed guards_ and released _herself,_ Ren? Whose head, exactly, should be on the chopping-block, if not yours? For currently I can see no others to blame.”

“It was her!” Ren protests. “She was gone when I got here. I swear it!” he insists, in response to Hux’s raised brows. He gesticulates angrily with the lightsaber. “It’s not my _fault.”_

“Put that thing away,” Hux orders him, ignoring. “You’ve done enough damage already.”

Ren looks down, confused, at the lightsaber, seeming just now to realise that it’s still in his hand. Somewhat abashed, he retracts the glowing blade with a _swoosh_ and sheathes it on his belt.

“Thank you.” Hux sighs. _Civil. Be civil._ “As for the girl — well, I suppose the security footage will prove if you’re lying —”

“Which I’m _not,”_ Ren interrupts petulantly. He seethes at Hux from behind his mask.

“— but in _any case,”_ Hux carries on, irritation brewing hot again, “surely all _this_ was unnecessary,” he says with distaste, making a sweeping gesture to indicate the still-smoking wreckage of the computers. “You _do_ know there are other ways to express your feelings than by destroying everything you see, don’t you?”

“Yes,” Ren mutters crossly. “I’m not a _child.”_

“You’re certainly acting like one,” Hux snaps. “Now. I don’t expect you’ll be much help in cleaning this up. I’ll call in the maintenance team — assuming they’ve finished taking care of the _last_ mess you made,” he adds pointedly.

Ren doesn’t even have the decency to look ashamed or to apologise: instead he raises his chin and gives a defiant _hmph._ Hux has become accustomed enough to deciphering his mood swings from his body language to guess that the knight is sneering at him behind the mask. _What more did I expect, really?_

Hux grits his teeth and reaches up to rub his temples, briefly closing his eyes. He turns on his heel and makes to leave, already making plans and determining what he has to do next: _check the security footage_ … Unfortunately there are only cameras in the interrogation rooms and not in the multitudinous halls of the base, which will at least aid in confirming or disproving Ren’s claims, but won’t be much further help in actually finding the girl. _So I’ll have to send out a patrol — and then direct the maintenance droids here and start making arrangements for the acquisition of replacement tech_ … _but find the girl first, that’s important._

( _He could probably help you find her,_ a voice in the back of his head suggests. _What with his powers and all —_

 _Hush,_ Hux tells the voice angrily, not wanting to admit that it — he — has a point. _I don’t want his help!_

_But do you need it?_

_No!)_

Flustered and annoyed, Hux pauses at the threshold to spit, “I suggest you learn to behave yourself, _Kylo._ For both of our sakes.”

*

The girl — Rey — is not found overnight.

This poses a problem. And very quickly, things begin to go further downhill.

The Order receives intelligence that the Resistance plans to attack, presumably with the aim of getting Rey back — but they don’t know when, or how. There is an immense and mounting tension in the air on Starkiller, a collective nervous murmur, and Hux does everything he can not to succumb to it. _We will be ready for them. We_ must _be ready._

He ignores, for now, the issue of the girl, realising as he does so that this is probably unwise. Instead — strangely anxious, feeling shaken and trying to regain some balance after the events of the previous night — he tries to focus solely on his orders from Snoke. This, however, proves difficult.

For not the first time in his life — although he has of course never acted upon these feelings — Hux is in disaccord with the opinion of his superior. While Snoke has decided that the entire Ileenium system must be destroyed, Hux disagrees. _The planets are inhabited, well-developed; they could be an asset to the Order. It would be more beneficial to us — and less bloody — were we to annex the system, rather than getting rid of it in a show of intimidation._

But orders are orders, even if they do come from a shadowy figure who, realistically speaking, should probably not be at the head of the most powerful military organisation in the galaxy. Hux sighs and tries to quash his apprehensions. He commands that the base’s weapon begin to be charged, and as they always do, his technicians comply at once. Hux tries to relax, fighting to ignore his misgivings and relish the seamless chain of command he’s established, its absolute efficiency…but there remains, as ever, a rather glaring exception in the form of Kylo Ren.

Hux hasn’t seen him since their confrontation the night before; he assumes he’s since kept to his quarters, meditating or training or sulking or whatever it is that he does when he’s not throwing fits and destroying thousands of credits’ worth of equipment. Hux rather hopes that Ren is keeping out of his way on purpose — or, better yet, that he’s decided to take upon himself the matter of finding the girl, as unlikely as that would be. In any case, Hux knows it’s better for the both of them if Ren keeps out of his sight: he’s teetering on the brink of _something_ just now, and knows that dealing with Ren would push him right off the edge.

Hux sighs. He pushes aside the somehow calming image of punching Ren square in the face and instead strides through the control room, checking over people’s shoulders, ensuring that everything is functioning as it should be (it is). He casts a glance out the viewports — the snowy surface of the base is calm, for now, but Hux can’t shake the feeling of impending dread that has lately invaded Starkiller’s ranks. _The Resistance won’t let her go so quietly. Something_ will _happen — and it’ll happen soon…_

“Sir?”

Hux turns sharply. “Yes, Colonel?”

“Sir, our shields have been dismantled. An air squadron is approaching the base.” Colonel Datoo points to the distant horizon. Black shapes pop out of hyperspace and advance through the atmosphere, swooping in fast and close: X-wings.

Hux’s chest tightens. “They’ve taken out the shields?” he repeats, stunned into momentary stupidity.

“Yes, General.” Datoo waits for a command. “Would you like us to retaliate?”

Hux begins at first to nod, but then he pauses, thinking furiously. His thoughts are jumbled, overshadowed by his nerves and his doubts. He hasn’t felt this unsure of something since his very first day at the Academy, and he hates it. But:

“Do nothing yet. Wait for them to get closer — don’t let them know we know they’re here,” he decides finally, temporising as much as he dares.

Does Hux imagine it, or do Datoo’s eyes flicker sceptically? “Yes, sir.”

Datoo goes. Hux resumes his pacing, turning his face from his officers and biting his lip, hard. His military logic finally kicks in, at last overpowering his reservations about Snoke’s strategy: _It would have been better to strike now, get them out of the way before they posed any more of a threat._ But he doesn’t have much time to regret his decision before an explosion is heard outside. With a sinking feeling in his stomach Hux moves at once to a viewport, and sees the snow outside rising in a great eruption as if the planet itself was sighing hugely. Inside the control room alarms start to wail, and Hux clenches his fists.

He hears technicians shouting, trying frantically to regain control. Footsteps approaching quickly: “Sir?” Datoo again, his forehead creased.

“Dispatch all squadrons,” Hux tells him, and knows his face betrays his own fear.

_We are lost._

*

The next hours are a blur.

Ren is nowhere to be seen, but for once, Hux almost misses his presence: with Ren at least he is kept alert, on his toes, wary and warlike. As the battle unfolds, though, Hux feels _apart,_ like he’s in a dream —  _a nightmare, more like;_ watching in disbelief as squadron after squadron of his impeccably-trained fighters are taken down, outside and even within the halls of the base; for the Resistance has infiltrated the First Order’s stronghold, and Hux knows there’s no going back. He watches his life’s work crumble around him, and he is numb.

 _And Ren._ Where is he? Dimly, through his horror, Hux registers that he should probably find him and make sure he’s safe: _Snoke will have my head if I let his prized pupil perish here._ Tearing himself from his post at the viewport with a bizarre reluctance — fixed there with a terrible fascination, watching everything he knows turn to dust — Hux strides quickly out of the control room. No one notices him leaving, caught up as they are in the last dance of the dying: hands flying over controls as alarms blare and shots fire in the background, doing everything they can but knowing it will all come to naught. Hux hears efficient commands being shouted, emergency protocols put in place exactly as he’d intended them to.

Pride in his soldiers rises in Hux’s throat, mixed with an indescribable sadness; and he hurries out unseen.

The oscillator is destroyed seconds after he leaves.

The planet shakes, throwing Hux into the stone wall of a corridor. Outside, the sky turns red and fills with smoke. Screams rise from all areas of the base, a nightmare chorus; Hux hears the pounding of feet and clattering of doors as his soldiers, brave and fighting to the last, finally desert their posts. His head throbs — he reaches up and feels warm blood dampening his hair, the stone wall having cut his head when he hit it. He gasps for breath, the pain making his vision blur and a blind unwilling determination taking over all his senses: _Find Ren._

*

Hux goes to Snoke, thinking maybe Ren will have taken refuge with his master. He stumbles into the assembly room as the walls collapse behind him, chunks of stone tumbling to the floor and making him jump. The doors hiss softly shut behind him: the sounds of the battle fade, and un-summoned, Snoke’s hologram fizzles into view. Ren isn’t here.

“General.” Snoke leans down from his throne.

Hux babbles, desperate — “Supreme Leader, the collapse of the planet has begun” — realising only now just how afraid he feels. Snoke frowns down at him, his image crackling in and out, and then he orders, “Bring Kylo Ren to me. It is time to complete his training.”

Hux’s heart sinks. This is what he’d expected, and still feared, and now finally he strains against it: _Is it really worth it? He’s only a child — surely there must be another…_

Snoke waits. “ _General,”_ he intones —

Hux closes his eyes briefly, digs his fingernails into his palms. Nearby, another explosion; one more great slab of stone crumbles outside the chamber doors. Hux opens his eyes, reluctant and resigned.

“Yes, Supreme Leader.”

He goes.

*

They find Ren on the surface, bleeding out in the snow.

He moans when they lift him onto the stretcher — cries out, in fact, a wordless keen betraying agony — the sound sends a chill down Hux’s spine. He follows grudgingly behind the troopers who bear Ren’s listless form and sees drops, pools of blood speckling the new-fallen snow. _And if he doesn’t live?_ he wonders impatiently. _And if this was all in vain?_ Ren’s cries echo in the air, mingling with the awful sounds of the planet’s collapse: rock plunging into lava, explosions near and farther. The air stinks of sulphur and smoke. Hux glances over his shoulder and quickens his pace, eager to escape the carnage and begin to forget it.

The distance to the transport — a small ship from Snoke’s private fleet, Hux notes — seems miles. It waits, a dark angular shape against the dreadful red sky. The gangway descends and the troopers struggle up it, jolting Ren and making him cry out again. Hux cringes at the sound and hurries up the ramp behind the stretcher. The doors seal behind him; seconds later the ship takes off. Hux staggers, blinking in the new bright light, screaming pain coursing through his head; he deliberates a moment and then follows the troopers — follows Ren.

His screams echo through the whole ship. When Hux arrives in the medbay (hovering on the threshold, unsure of his place in this equation), the few staff are already hard at work: a human nurse strips off Ren’s clothes, cutting them away from a deep and bloody wound in his side that makes Hux’s stomach roil to look at. She passes the torn and tattered strips of fabric to a med-droid, and soon enough Ren is bare-chested, his torso bruised and scraped. His arms, too, are bare and injured, the left one cut severely; and as the nurse sweeps Ren’s long hair off his face Hux sees a grisly shining slash drawn from forehead to left cheek. Ren’s eyes are squeezed tightly shut in pain but the cut appears to have missed them both: a lucky fluke. The droids and nurses bustle around him, calling directions and beginning their work, and when the first of them lays hands on his bare skin he howls.

The sound is animal, unrestrained. Ren’s back arches, he shies away from the touch: his eyes flash open and there is a wild fear there. Hux flinches.

 “Lord Ren, sir, please — we’re going to need you to lie still,” one of the nurses instructs him. “We have to put bacta on your wounds; it’s _imperative_ that we do it quickly…”

Ren moans. The nurse advances and tries to begin her ministrations again: Ren’s jaw works hard, biting back a scream. When she touches the wound he cries out: _“No,”_ he groans, _“don’t —_ ”

Hux watches unseen from the doorway. He’s never seen Ren so weak, and it jars him. The nurses try again to apply the healing gel to the awful mess of Ren’s side, but again he writhes away as far as the intensive-care pod’s sides will let him, raw sounds tearing from his throat like the cries of a wounded beast. Hux swallows. He makes up his mind.

“Ren,” he says, stepping forward into the room. The nurses and even the droids all look up in surprise at hearing a new voice. The one who was removing Ren’s clothes and now holds the jar of bacta for her colleague is the first to speak. She’s young, plain, sincere-looking; her forehead creases on seeing Hux.

“General, sir,” she begins hesitantly, her eyes flickering to the blood drying on his forehead. She steps protectively in front of Ren, trying to shield him from Hux’s view. “Are you in need of medical attention? One of the droids can assist you —” and sure enough a med-droid hurries over at once. In a second it has produced a slim light and is hovering in Hux’s face, trying to shine it in his eyes and beeping in a flurry of concern.

“Sir, if you’ve been hit on the head, you may have a concussion,” the nurse worries. “We should take a look at your vitals —”

  
“I’m _fine,_ thank you,” Hux cuts her off, stepping out of the droid’s reach and giving it a dirty look. _I can worry about my own injuries later. Ren’s safety is now, apparently, my top priority._

Hux approaches the bed. The other droids and nurses move back to let him pass, doubtful but still deferring to his authority. Ren moans softly, his eyes still squeezed tight shut. “Ren,” Hux repeats, in the tense silence.

Ren opens his eyes, though it clearly pains him. He registers Hux’s face, frowns confusedly.

Hux remembers distantly his military medical training: _Use the patient’s name. Speak clearly and calmly. Don’t coddle, but don’t let them know how bad it really is._ “Ren,” he continues, his voice measured, “they need you to lie still. They need to treat your wounds, Ren. You’ve been injured badly and they need to do this quickly.”

“It hurts,” Ren says, his chest rising and falling with harsh shallow breaths. “It _hurts —_ ”

“I know,” Hux interrupts evenly. “But if you let them treat you now, it won’t hurt later,” he explains, as if reasoning with a child. “You’ll feel better soon. Very soon. But you must lie still now and not make a fuss. Can you do that, Ren?” he asks calmly.

Hux gives a small nod to the nurses and they move close again, hovering at the ready. Ren fixes his eyes on Hux’s. They look a child’s eyes, so dark and so scared — “Ren?” Hux asks again, when Ren makes no reply. “Can you do that?”

Ren gasps and closes his eyes as a spasm of pain moves through him. He gives no response for another moment: he seems to grapple, breathing hard, eyes wrenched tightly shut. Hux grows impatient: _Does he wish to die of his wounds, for stars’ sake?_

“ _Kylo!”_ Hux bites out, losing his patience at last.

And now: “Yes,” Ren responds finally, his voice weak and reluctant. Hux nods again to the nurses, and they begin at once to work, swabbing on bacta and bandaging him up. Ren grits his teeth and his breathing still comes shallowly, but he lets them do it.

Satisfied, Hux steps back. He wonders irritably why Ren was so unwilling to let them treat his injuries. Bacta, upon application, will immediately begin to dull the pain of a wound: it is cool and soothing, and doesn’t sting; _so it can’t be that which was hurting him._ The wound, obviously, is agonising, but the nurses are being as careful as they can…

 _Touch._ Is that it? Was Ren shying not from the bacta, pained not only by his wound — but by their touch?

Hux files this away for future consideration.

Now that the immediate issue of Ren and his living or dying is under control, and that, presumably, they are on their way to Snoke as ordered (Hux hasn’t given commands to the pilots, but obviously somebody has), he begins to feel his own injuries, his weariness. The gash on his head pulses: he is no stranger to migraines but this pain is worse. He feels suddenly dizzy, reaches out to the wall for support: he realises for the first time how _tired_ he is, how utterly drained.

The nurses finish dressing the wound in Ren’s side and move on to his face, stitching up the ugly gash with care. _That will scar, no doubt. Unfortunate,_ Hux thinks distantly, watching them. Ren lies quiet now, his eyelids fluttering restlessly; soon a med-droid moves to him and injects him with a sleeping drug. Hux watches in envy, feeling his own eyes growing heavy —  _tired, I am so tired…_

“Sir?” one of the nurses inquires, drying her hands briskly after sanitising them. “Sir, are you sure you’re all right?”

“Yes,” Hux replies at once, opening his eyes. “I’m fine.”

The nurse frowns up at him. She’s older than him, with almond-shaped eyes and greying black hair braided severely off her face. Her white uniform is spotted with blood — Ren’s blood — in places. “I don’t think you are, sir,” she tells him sternly. “That cut on your head — let me have a look.”

Hux lets her lead him to a chair, sit him down and examine him: “It’s not as bad as it seems,” she assures him. “Head wounds, even superficial ones, tend to bleed a great deal. Does it hurt?”

 _Seems a silly question,_ Hux thinks drowsily —  _“Sir, you’ve just been thrown headfirst, and rather violently, against a solid stone wall; are you feeling quite all right?” “Oh yes, yes, just wonderful, in fact” —_

“Yes. Oh — yes,” he answers her, as her cold and deft fingers probe gently at the cut. “It hurts.”

The nurse _tsk_ s. She goes to fetch the bacta from Ren’s bedside and quickly dresses the cut, wrapping a bandage neatly around Hux’s head. When she’s finished (the bacta gives him instant relief from the stinging of the cut itself but not the horrid throbbing in his head), she wets a cloth and wipes the dried blood from Hux’s face, motherly even in her efficiency. “There you go, sir. All patched up.”

“Might I have something — for my headache?” Hux asks, mildly dazed. He lifts a hand to his temple and shuts his eyes, succumbing to the pounding pain.

“Of course, sir.” The nurses bustles away again, returns seconds later with water and two blue capsules. “Take these.”

Hux does, clumsily, and feels a respite almost at once. “Thank you,” he murmurs. His eyes begin to feel heavy again.

“Would you like us to show you to a cabin, sir?” the nurse asks. “There are officers’ quarters on board, not currently in use — I’m sure you’d be very comfortable.”

Absently, Hux thinks _I should stay — keep an eye on Ren — Snoke would expect me to. I’ll keep watch overnight, make sure he’s out of danger…_

“No, no,” Hux declines tiredly; “I’ll stay here, thank you...” His head droops forward, he falls asleep.

The nurses leave him be.

*


	2. Chapter 2

*

The sleeping drugs aren’t strong enough to make Ren forget.

Asleep, he sees again and again his father’s face as the blade pierced his chest: feels his hand warm on his cheek, hears his own name for the first time in years: _Ben…_ He sees his father falling into emptiness, going somewhere Ren wished then — and wishes now — he could have followed, if only to be free of this.

_He said it would fix me, would make me stronger — he told me it would save me, he told me I’d be free — but this is worse, this is so much worse, I am not whole, I am not me —_

Ren wakes himself with screaming.

Hux jolts awake in the stiff-backed chair, all his senses on alert: he thinks for a wild moment he’s back at military school, in one of his father’s notorious simulations. But as his eyes adjust to the darkness and he finds his bearings he slowly realises he’s in a ship’s medbay, not a sim room at the Academy; and then all at once it floods back — the attack, his flight to Snoke, finding Ren — even his head wound begins to throb, as if on cue, when he remembers that it happened. And the screaming: Hux remembers Ren, and Ren’s own wounds, and Ren lying in agony, writhing from the nurses’ touch; and all of it comes together.

Hux stands and makes his way in the dark to the faintly glowing IC pod where Ren lies, thrashing, apparently still dreaming although his eyes are open. He’s breathing hard: the bandage on his side is soaked-through with scarlet; his dark hair hangs limp and damp and wild, and his face (but for the stitched-up dark gash) is pale and glazed with sweat.

“Ren.”

Ren’s head whips violently toward the sound of his voice. “What?” he asks fearfully, not recognising Hux. “What do you want?”

“Ren,” Hux says, stepping closer so Ren can see him. “You’re delirious. Try to calm down —”

“Snoke,” Ren cuts him off. He blinks rapidly, seeming to wake up a little. “Snoke. Where is he?”

“We’re going to him now,” Hux replies warily, thrown. “You’ve been hurt, you need to rest —”

“ _No,”_ Ren cries out at once. “ _No!_ No. I can’t go to him — I’ll be punished – I’ve _failed…”_ His eyes squeeze shut in anguish.

“What do you mean?” Hux asks, bewildered. “Failed? How?”

“I killed him,” Ren whispers harshly. “I killed him and it didn’t fix me.”

“ _Killed_ him — killed who?” Hux demands. This is new information to him, and shocking — he can’t imagine who Ren means, and why he’s afraid Snoke will punish him — why he feels he has somehow failed, that he needs to be _fixed._ “Ren, what are you talking about?”

Suddenly Ren’s hands fly to the dressing at his side, as if he’s just now realised it was there. He pats and fumbles at it, urgent: Hux stares, perplexed, and then realises all at once that Ren is trying to remove his own bandages. He succeeds soon enough, tearing them away from his skin with a wince, but he doesn’t stop there: Hux watches in astonishment as Ren interlaces his fingers and presses down hard on the exposed and bloody wound, once, twice, thrice, in a rhythm, deliberate —

_Stop him, for stars’ sake!_ Hux’s judgement finally kicks in, and he starts, stands and makes to grab for Ren’s hands; but before he can do so Kylo Ren gives a sob of pain and stops the movement himself. His eyes fly shut and Hux sees, with increasing stupefaction, tears coursing down the knight’s cheeks. His chest heaves: he’s clearly in agony, and Hux registers dumbly that it’s up to him to do something about this. He looks around for a call button and mercifully finds one; Ren’s shoulders shake as he begins to sob in earnest, his moans growing still more pained as Hux presses the button and waits impatiently for the arrival of a med-droid. Thankfully, one appears almost at once, and, assessing the situation, administers another shot of sleeping drugs.

Ren’s eyelids grow heavy immediately. His great broad body sinks into the mattress, his muscles relaxing. The droid is easily able to re-dress the wound without any resistance from Ren, collecting the soiled bandages when it’s done. Without realising he’s doing it, Hux watches and waits until the dressing is finished and the droid has disappeared before turning from Ren’s sleeping form.

He is stunned by what he’s just seen. Ren, apparently delirious and dreaming, stripping off his bandages and deliberately causing himself more pain —  _what in the seven hells was he doing?_ Hux is deeply discomfited by the mechanical way he’d had gone about it, driving his hands down and down on the wound as if it hadn’t been his own body at all — and then suddenly seeming to come to, crying out as if released from a possession. Hux shudders.

Not knowing what else to do, he goes back to his very uncomfortable chair and settles in as best he can: the bacta has worn off from the cut on his head and it’s stinging, and his head has begun to pound again. He recalls vaguely the nurse’s concern that he might have been concussed — if so, sleeping will have been unwise — but decides that he simply does not care. He’s exhausted, and his body begs for rest; but the pain (not to mention the recollection of what he’s just witnessed) is distracting, and he doesn’t want to call the droid again. He checks the miraculously undamaged chrono on his wrist and finds it’s just after 0400 hours: only an hour before the time he usually wakes up and begins his day. He sighs, resigned: _No point going back to sleep now._

So Hux sits awake for an unpeaceful hour, unconsciously attuned to and waiting for the slightest sounds or movements from the IC pod, trying to piece together the things Ren had said and done and coming up with nothing. Despite the younger man’s temper — and his recklessness, and his complete disregard for Hux’s authority, and his ridiculous lightsaber and his unnecessary mask and the thousand other things about him that drive Hux to distraction — Hux finds that he is still truly concerned for his safety. _If nothing else he’s a liability, something I’ll be blamed for if anything goes wrong._

He’s been gravely physically injured, and is obviously in no fit mental state either — although Hux wonders if he’s ever been. For not the first time he wonders about Ren’s background: his life before his posting to Starkiller, his life in the Knights of Ren; his life before that — if he even had one, Hux supposes. He doesn’t know how life in such an order differs from life in the First Order, which selects its soldiers from birth, cuts them off from their families and trains them as pure and deadly weapons; or, in the case of the command, ruthless fearless officers whose first and last loyalty is to the glory of the Order.

Hux wonders how Ren got to be the way he is: from where the frightful temper comes, from where the violence; and above all, from where the tendency toward destruction, of himself as well as others. He could blame it all on Snoke, on the training he has given Ren, but something tells Hux there’s more to the story. He thinks again of Ren balking from the nurses’ touch, and still more questions arise; but he pushes those aside for now.

_He killed someone._ Who? Hux has known Ren to kill before — although he was not present for the attack on Jakku, he knows Ren’s orders from Snoke were…flexible, and that Ren took advantage of this to massacre a whole village even _after_ having found the pilot with the map. This rankled with Hux: unnecessary slaughter has no place in his philosophy, in his own methods; it’s messy and barbaric, in Hux’s opinion; merely showing off, in the most gruesome way possible. He was not at all surprised to learn what Ren had done, for “messy,” “barbaric” and “show-off” are practically synonyms for “Kylo Ren”; but surprising or not, the act had still only deepened Hux’s distrust and dislike of Ren. Hux likes order; he likes predictability, and he likes knowing where he and others stand. He does not like livewire madness, shifting ground; he cannot abide all that which Kylo Ren is.

And yet. And yet. He is here.

0500 hours. Hux did not sleep. He sighs: he rises stiffly from his chair, his back and head complaining loudly. He’s still wearing his uniform, and he realises now how filthy it is, covered in ash and dirt and blood. His weary whirling mind fixes on this, resolves: _Something to do. I can fix this._ He casts a last glance at Ren, seemingly still asleep; and then he leaves the medbay, unanswered questions hanging like a sword over his head.

*

They find fresh clothing for him, and even new leather gloves at his request: it’s not a uniform but it will do for now. Hux remembers that his greatcoat was left behind on Starkiller, and finds absurdly that he misses it. He uses the sonic shower in the officers’ quarters, applies fresh bacta to his cut and wishes for more medication to treat his ever-present headache; he shaves, combs his hair cautiously, avoiding the bandage. And then because he has nothing else to do — quite literally, and for the first time perhaps ever; he feels uprooted and strange without a schedule and plans — Hux goes back to the medbay to check on Kylo Ren.

He’s awake. At first Hux takes this as a good sign, but is soon proven wrong. The grey-haired nurse from yesterday is standing at Ren’s bedside and apparently trying to bargain with him. As Hux comes closer he hears the exchange: the woman exasperated, telling Ren sharply “Sir, you _must not_ touch the dressings — you’ll get the wound infected. You’ve made it worse already.”

“I don’t care,” Ren says, obstinate. _(Much more like himself today,_ Hux thinks drily). He notes that an IV drip has been hooked up to Ren’s hand, a bluish liquid filling it; Ren’s eyes look dazed now, slightly out-of-focus with the drugs.

“We need to apply fresh bacta and bandages to fix the damage you’ve done here,” the nurse persists severely. “And once we do so it is _crucial_ that you leave the wound alone.”

“No,” Ren says. “No more bacta.” He picks irritably at the needle taped to the back of his hand, but his fingers are slow and inept, fumbling unsuccessfully to remove it. “No more drugs, either. Nothing,” he adds, his voice cross and slurring.

The nurse sighs again, louder this time. She seems on the point of snapping when Hux clears his throat and offers, “Might I be of any assistance?”

The nurse turns round in surprise and frowns when she lays eyes on him. “Good morning, General Hux, sir,” she greets him, still sounding irritated.

“What’s the problem here?” Hux asks smoothly, his eyes flicking to Ren. The latter stares up at the ceiling, biting his bottom lip and fairly trembling with frustration. _Practically his old self already._

“Lord _Ren_ refuses to co-operate,” the nurse informs him, struggling to keep her voice professional and cool. “It would appear he tore off his bandages sometime in the night, sir; and though a droid refreshed them soon after, this morning he ripped those off, as well.”

“I see,” Hux says grimly. The riddle of last night’s incident grows only more obscure.

“You understand, sir, that in doing this Lord Ren is in fact reversing all our efforts to treat him,” the nurse continues in a tone of repressed agitation. “And that now, in refusing to let us touch him — to change his bandages, clean his stitches, and apply fresh bacta to his wounds — he is gravely hindering his own healing, and ensuring himself only further pain?”

 “Yes,” Hux agrees. “I understand completely, even if Ren doesn’t seem to.” He turns to Ren, now. “Surely you _do_ understand, though, Ren?” he asks pointedly. “Surely it’s clear to you that if you wish to avoid the eventual sepsis of your side and permanent damage to your face, you’ll have to make a few small _concessions,_ such as not repeatedly unbandaging your wounds, and allowing yourself, stars forbid, to be _touched?”_

The hint of aggression in his tone sparks a familiar indignance in Ren; however, in his drugged and weakened state he’s unable to respond with quite _all_ of his usual insolence. “Yes,” he growls, glaring at Hux. “But I _can’t.”_

“You can’t what, Ren?” Hux demands.

“I _can’t.”_ And he clams up firmly.

Hux sighs: _Typical._ He exchanges a tight-lipped look with the older nurse and says irritably “Have it your way, then. Blood poisoning is a real treat, I’ve heard.”

Ren’s nostrils flare. Sullenly he turns his head away from Hux and the nurses. The three exchange glances, deliberating silently as to what to do with the patient; finally Hux sighs. “Let me deal with this. I’ve more —  _experience_ with Lord Ren’s particular brand of immaturity,” he says, raising his voice on this last to ensure Ren can hear it.

“Thank you, sir,” the older nurse says, looking grateful to pass the burden on to him. “How are you feeling today, by the way? Any better?”

“The cut, yes; the headache, no,” Hux says ruefully. In a moment the nurse has gone to the dispensary cabinet and come back with a full bottle of the blue pills from last night, pressing them into his hand. “Thank you,” he says, pocketing it. He smiles briefly at the two women, and then they leave him alone with Ren.

Hux goes to the chair where he spent last night and brings it over to Ren’s bedside. He sits down: _no doubt we’ll be here awhile._ Ren is still facing away from him, the very picture of a sulking child denied a favourite toy. Hux folds his gloved hands neatly in his lap and begins.

“So, Ren,” he says. “I see you decided to repeat last night’s _episode._ Had fun, did you? Enjoyed yourself so much you decided to do it again?” he asks acidly.

Ren seethes at him. “I had to,” he mutters, surly.

“You _had_ to? Were you under _orders_ , Ren, to tear off your own bandages and _pound your fist into your wound?”_ Hux demands with colossal disdain. “What were you _thinking?”_

“I need the pain.”

The response is quiet, sullen, final.

“I’m sorry?” Hux asks in the stunned silence.

Ren levels him with a glare, his dark eyes fogged but his words clear-cut and definite. “I said I need the pain. It makes me stronger.”

The absurdity of this stops Hux in his tracks. He casts about for words, not knowing where even to begin — finally he comes out with a dumbfounded _“What?”_

“It’s what the Supreme Leader tells me,” Ren mumbles, seeming abashed, now. He shifts, not meeting Hux’s disbelieving gaze. “He says my pain will give me power. Make me better and stronger. Fix me.”

_Fix me:_ there it is again. _But what is it that is broken?_

“Is this part of your _training,_ Ren?” Hux asks, once he’s processed Ren’s (non)answer. “Is it some — some _trial_ you have to pass?” he invents, expecting to be wildly wrong — but to his shock Ren nods.

“Yes.” He pauses, struggling for words. “I was weak, and I failed. I have to make myself strong again so that I can complete my training.” Ren says this plainly, as if it makes perfect sense; but Hux is left still more bewildered.

“All right, Ren,” Hux says slowly, deciding to go along. “Why don’t we start from the beginning? What exactly do you mean when you say that you _failed?”_

“I killed him,” Ren answers, “but I couldn’t kill her.”

“Who?” Hux demands.

“My father,” Ren says simply. “And the girl.”

_His father._ Hux’s jaw clenches in surprise.

“And when I killed him, it didn’t make it better,” Ren continues, his voice coming heavy and slow. “It wasn’t easy.” All at once he shudders. “Snoke said — he said it would be a test, but that he would guide me, and make me strong. If I was as strong as I should have been it would have been easy.” His eyes flicker shut. “But I wasn’t. I’m _not.”_

Hux doesn’t know what to say: if possible he has even more questions now. He stares blankly at the wall beside Ren’s pod, his thoughts reeling out of control. _Where do I even begin?_

 “I see,” he says finally, weakly.

“No you don’t.” Ren’s eyes are still closed. His retort is toneless and rings true.

“All right. No. I don’t understand,” Hux acknowledges. “But maybe you could help me to —”

“You can’t take me to him,” Ren interjects suddenly, his eyes flying open again. They look frighteningly lucid, now, and they fix on Hux with urgency. “Don’t take me to him.”

“To whom? To Snoke?” Hux asks, struggling.

Ren nods urgently. “Please. Not yet.” He takes a rattling breath. “Make them delay. Somehow.”

This, at least, is something concrete: a request, a plea; not vague alarming declarations, shadows of sinister proportion hovering just out of Hux’s reach. He swallows. “Delay going to Snoke.”

“Yes.”

“But I’m under orders,” Hux tells him uncertainly. “I was told to bring you straight to him, in order to complete your training — that is what you want, is it not?”

“ _No,”_ Ren says, with such vehemence that Hux draws back slightly. “No. I _can’t,”_ he insists, sounding pitiful now, desperate. “Not yet! _Please,”_ he implores Hux, fixing his eyes on him again. “Hux. Please.”

The use of his name is surprising: usually he’s “General”, to Ren, or any number of less respectful things. This, coupled with Ren’s sudden, seeming change of heart, takes Hux thoroughly aback. He looks confusedly into Ren’s eyes and sees, again, a terrified child staring back at him. He swallows.

“All right.” Hux clears his throat. “All right. I will — I will do what I can to delay the meeting with Snoke.”

Ren relaxes visibly. He seems to sink back into his pillow, his eyes closing in relief. “Good,” he murmurs.

“ _But,”_ Hux continues, seeing an opportunity to bargain, “only if you agree to co-operate,” he says firmly. “No more taking off your bandages. No more…hurting yourself, either,” he presses. “Listen to the nurses. Do what they ask of you.” _Let them help you, Ren,_ he almost adds, and stops himself without knowing why.

These demands seem insupportable to Ren, at first: he winces, opens his eyes and seems about to protest. But Hux gives him a warning glare, and he holds his tongue; finally, he sighs and says quietly “I will.”

Hux breathes a sigh of relief. “Thank you.”

Ren gives no response. His eyes have closed again; his right fist, clenched, falls gently open.

Hux makes to leave, to go find the nurses and tell them what he’s arranged — but as he stands quietly Ren says, “Wait.”

Hux turns back. “Yes?”

“Will you — stay?” Ren asks, seeming to force the words from his mouth.

Hux’s eyebrows rise slightly. He takes a moment to formulate a response: _I suppose I have nothing else to do_...

“If you’d like,” he finally says, still without fully knowing why he agreed.

“Thank you.”

And Ren’s eyes close again.

*


	3. Chapter 3

*

Ren sleeps for some hours. Hux doesn’t recall when he himself drifted off, too, but he’s jarred awake by Ren’s voice crying “ _No!”_

Hux’s eyes snap open. He starts half out of his chair, his head pounding and his hand flying to the place on his waist where his holster should be, before he remembers — civilian clothes _._ He takes in the scene before him as his jolted heart rate slows: the younger of the nurses is back at Ren’s bedside, one or two bloodied bandages in her hand; she looks culpable and frightened, and when Ren bellows, “I said don’t _touch_ me!” she shrinks back from him as if afraid he’ll strike her.

“ _Kylo!”_

Hux’s voice rings out sharply. Both Ren’s and the young nurse’s heads whip toward him; Hux stands to his full height and asks, very coolly, “What is going on here?”

“I told them not to touch me,” Ren blurts out first.

The young nurse shoots Hux a terrified glance and makes to speak; when Ren attempts to babble on Hux holds up a hand and stops him firmly in his tracks. He nods to the nurse: “Yes?”

“He was sleeping, sir,” the nurse explains timidly, “and I thought I’d change his bandages then — I thought it would be easier, I wouldn’t have to disturb him.” She looks scared out of her wits, and Hux takes pity on her, nodding calmly.

“A very reasonable thought,” he acknowledges. The nurse looks relieved. “And what happened next?” Hux prompts her.

“Well, I started to change them with no problem” (she gestures to the soiled strips of fabric draped over one of her arms). “He seemed so deeply asleep; but then he woke up, sir, just now,” the nurse tells him, “and he —” She swallows. “He didn’t like it.”

“Yes, I saw that much,” Hux comments. He gives the nurse a small bolstering smile. “You’ve done nothing wrong, I assure you,” he tells her. “After the events of earlier today, Ren was instructed to co-operate with you and your colleagues; but he seems to have forgotten about the agreement that we made,” he says acidly, shooting a glance at Ren. “Isn’t that right, Ren?”

Ren glowers at him and says nothing.

“Carry on with your work,” Hux instructs the nurse. “I expect Ren will be much more _agreeable_ now.”

The nurse nods quickly and then, with trepidation, turns back to Ren’s wound. She manages to remove a few more layers of bloodied gauze before Ren shifts violently and commands, “ _Stop!”_

Hux levels him with an exasperated glare. “ _Enough,_ Ren —”

“I don’t want her to touch me,” Ren says testily.

“Well, unfortunately for you, I don’t believe she’s Force-sensitive, so those bandages are not going to _float_ their way off of your skin,” Hux snaps. _“Honestly,_ Ren! Stop complaining, for stars’ sake —”

“Can’t you do it?” Ren blurts out.

Hux is so surprised he almost doesn’t understand him. “I’m _sorry?”_

Ren swallows, his dark eyes flashing between Hux and the nurse, Hux and the nurse. “You have medical training,” he mumbles finally. “You could do it.”

Hux stares at him. His mind is blank: _Well, yes,_ technically _, but — why would I, when there are trained nurses here whose only patient is him? Why in the seven hells does he need me — want_ me —  _to take care of him?_

“I — well, yes, I could,” Hux admits after a moment, conceding to the absurdity of the situation. He swallows, feeling completely foolish when he asks, “Would you —  _like me to?”_

Ren nods shortly.

Hux exchanges a look of absolute confusion with the nurse and then says slowly “All right”: _if I must, if this is what it takes._ He glances questioningly at the nurse and she nods, quickly discarding the old bandages in her arms and then showing him where the fresh gauze is kept, indicating the jar of bacta at Ren’s bedside. Hux thanks her and she skitters out, obviously eager to get as far away from Ren as possible.

_Well. Then._ Hux turns to the task at hand. It’s been many years since he received his medical training, and he hasn’t had much — any, really — combat experience where it would have been necessary since. He’s treated several minor injuries over the years, his own and others’; but Ren’s wound is anything but minor, and as Hux approaches Ren’s bedside and looks down at what is visible of his half-bandaged side, he begins to strongly regret having caved to Ren’s whim.

The wound, a day old, is still gory and fresh. Hux doesn’t know which weapon is responsible for such carnage, but he shudders to think of being on the wrong end of one. As he peers closer he sees a distinct, dark-burned entrance wound, clearly made by a laser; but it’s too big to be from a blaster bolt. Something larger, then, and more aggressive —  _a bowcaster, perhaps, such as those favoured by the Wookiees?_ Hux hazards. He doesn’t want to ask Ren to confirm, thinking it best to avoid all talk of the previous day’s events for fear of sending him into another delirious rage.

Hux takes a breath and steels himself. He feels Ren’s eyes fix on him as he goes about removing the last of the soiled gauze, being as gentle as he can. Ren is on a great deal of pain medication, he knows — the drip at his side and the glazed look in his eyes confirm this — but he’s cautious still, wary of provoking him even in the slightest. Once the bloody bandages are all off, Hux disposes of them with the rest in the biohazard bin; he then reaches for the bacta and a swab and begins to dab the gel onto the wound.

“How does that feel?” Hux asks uncertainly, seeing Ren shudder as the bacta touches his skin. “Does it hurt?”

“No,” Ren murmurs. “It’s — fine.”

“Can I go on?”

“Mm.”

Hux does. He applies a layer of bacta to the whole mess of the cut, and after confirming that it’s working — “Yes, it’s fine, it’s fine” — he reaches for fresh bandages. He lays down a clean layer of gauze, remembering the process from his training and feeling fairly confident; but then comes the next step, the bandages themselves, and Hux runs into a problem.

“Ren,” he says. The knight is laying still, his eyes closed, but at the sound of Hux’s voice he opens them.

“What is it?”

“The bandages,” Hux explains. “I should wrap them around.” _So you won’t be able to rip them off again,_ is his implication, and one that Ren understands at once, if the guilty flicker in his eye is any indication. “You’ll have to — move.”

Ren nods. Slowly, painfully, he eases himself into a sitting position, propping himself on his uninjured arm. Hux waits until he’s settled — “Thank you,” he says awkwardly, and Ren nods, curt — before taking up the roll of bandages and moving closer, unsure of himself. He clears his throat. _I can do this._

Hux presses the end of the bandage atop the pad of gauze, applying as little pressure as possible. “Does that hurt at all?” he quickly asks of Ren; he shakes his head. Hux nods. “All right.” Cautiously, gingerly, holding the one end in place, Hux leans down and wraps the tails of the bandage around Ren’s muscular abdomen — once one way, once the other, quickly, trying to touch his (warm, bare) skin as little as he can. Ren barely flinches. Hux ties a careful knot away from the actual wound and then steps back to examine his work.

“There,” he says with a note of satisfaction: he hasn’t done a bad job.

“You look as if you expect to be evaluated, General,” Ren comments, deadpan. Hux looks up, startled: he hadn’t realised Ren was watching him so closely. Ren cocks an eyebrow at him: “Full marks.”

_He’s teasing_ _me._ “Thank you,” Hux replies stiffly, embarrassed despite himself. “You would know.”

“Mm. Suppose I would.” Ren shifts in bed, seeming restless; the drugs must be starting to wear off. He lifts a distracted hand to his new-bandaged side, and Hux tenses, anticipating another fit like last night’s. Ren sees, and the barest of smirks turns up the corners of his mouth. “Don’t worry, Hux,” Ren says lazily, teasing again. “I won’t undo your hard work.” He winces, bravado gone. “It just — it still hurts.”

“Do you need more painkillers?” Hux asks.

“If you don’t mind.”

Hux presses the button that will refill Ren’s IV, and watches as the bluish liquid streams from the bag through the tubes to the insertion point on the back of Ren’s hand. As it enters his system Ren sighs: “Better.”

(Hux is reassured by this: _no more of that nonsense about his pain making him stronger — for the moment, at least)._

Ren has handsome hands, Hux observes mildly, never having seen them ungloved before: large and strong, wiry-veined and long-fingered. Unlike the rest of Ren’s bare skin, littered with sundry contusions and scratches, his hands are uninjured, untouched. They seem somehow innocent compared to the rest of him; and yet —  _those hands have done terrible things._

Wielded a deadly weapon, and used it; destroyed and maimed with it, no doubt. Acted as a conduit for the energy of the Force, and used it to harm and terrify (yes, Hux has seen the footage of Ren’s interrogations; he has seen his own officers with terror in their eyes and rings of bruises round their necks; and yet he knows that Ren never laid a finger on them: that he didn’t have to).

Those hands killed Ren’s father.

_Those hands could kill me._ Hux shudders, suddenly unnerved by the sight of them, lying harmless as they are atop the sterile medical blankets. “Do you need anything else?” he asks abruptly, agitated.

“No. I think I’ll sleep some more now,” Ren tells him. He studies Hux’s face for a moment, seems about to ask something but stops himself. “Thank you.”

“You’re welcome.”

_See?_ Hux thinks absently. _Civil._

Hux gives himself a small shake and then goes quickly to sanitise his hands, drying them neatly; but then he hovers, uncertain of what to do next. The pain in his head has returned, or perhaps has been there all along, momentarily eclipsed by his focus on his task; so he takes care of that first, finding a cup and fetching water, swallowing two more of the blue tablets from the bottle in his pocket. That done, and unable to come up with anything else he might have to do, Hux goes doubtfully back to take a seat in his chair by Ren’s pod.

_If he wakes up and needs anything I won’t have to call for the nurse or a droid,_ Hux reasons. _And if he — dreams again, perhaps I can calm him down._

His rationale is, perhaps, questionable; but he decides it’s enough. He settles in to the uncomfortable chair and waits.

*

The grey-haired nurse comes in to check on Ren a few hours after her colleague was dismissed and Hux took over. As the day has passed the clean bandages on Ren’s side have grown redder again: a bloom of blood starting small at first, spreading out and out like some grotesque exotic flower. Hux saw this happening: he knew he should take care of it before it got much worse, to reduce the risk of complications; but he looked at Ren sleeping and he saw him at peace, and somehow he couldn’t bring himself to disturb him. When the nurse arrives and takes a look at the dressing, she frowns at Hux — “Do you need my help changing those, General?” she enquires, clearly bemused as to why he hasn’t dealt with it already.

“No, no,” Hux hastens to assure her. He flushes slightly, knowing that he’s made an error; he can’t bring himself to explain the foolish reason he hasn’t acted yet: _I wanted to let him sleep in peace._ “I was just getting to it,” he adds, unconvincing.

She fixes him with a knowing look and says crisply, “Don’t bother. I’m here now, I’ll do it.” She goes briskly to the other side of the IC pod and begins to strip away the dirty dressings; but she doesn’t make it very far before Ren wakes with a groan.

“Hux,” he mumbles blearily.

Hux starts. “What is it?”

“I want Hux to do it.”

The grey-haired nurse looks up at Hux, her hands hovering over Ren’s side. “Sir?”

Hux nods, taken aback by Ren’s request (demand) but knowing he’ll have to capitulate. “I can do it.”

“If you’re sure, sir,” the nurse defers, her eyes still sceptical.

“I am.”

She leaves.

As before, Hux removes the red-stained dressings, swabs the wound with bacta and presses fresh gauze to it; without prompting Ren obediently sits up, lets Hux wrap a new bandage round him. Ren seems more at ease this time, less pained; he relaxes, just slightly, and shifts. Hux’s gloved hand nudges his bare skin.

“I’m sorry.” Hux’s response is automatic, and he draws back a little, concerned he might’ve provoked him; but Ren says nothing. He gestures that Hux continue, and so he does, working more quickly, less precisely now. He ties a knot that is not much, but still noticeably, sloppier than the last; Ren’s eyes flick down to it and he makes a sound low in his throat.

“Marks off, General,” Ren gibes tiredly. “You’re losing your touch.” He sinks back onto the pillow and yawns widely, making the stitches on his face stretch. He grimaces in pain and closes his mouth.

“Let me clean that up,” Hux says of the cut. “Put more bacta on. It’ll help.”

“If you must.” Ren lofty now, traces of his former self showing through the pain. Hux wets a cloth, applies it hesitantly to the gash; he cleans carefully around each of the stitches, which are still inflamed. Ren grits his teeth; unconsciously Hux works quicker. He applies more bacta and Ren seems to relax.

“Better?”

“Mm. A little.”

“Good.”

A pause. Hux disposes of the bacta swab, stands fiddling with the cuff of his left glove.

“What will you do now?” Ren asks, after too much silence to be casual.

“What do you mean?”

“Now,” Ren says. “I’ve been taken care of. You must have other things to do.”

“Actually I don’t,” Hux tells him. He blinks, still absorbing the strangeness of it. “I have nothing to do. Someone else is in charge of this ship — it’s one of Snoke’s, it’s not mine.” Though he knows it’s impractical — that they’re on this small shuttle because it’s discreet and less traceable, in contrast to the massive and domineering _Finalizer —_ he finds he already strangely misses the Star Destroyer and having its command. “I have no duties here.”

“Is that why you agreed to tend to me?” Ren asks, a hint of defensiveness creeping into his voice. “Because it fills the time?”

_Yes,_ a voice in Hux’s head agrees.

“No,” Hux says aloud, surprising himself. “I agreed to tend to you so that you’d co-operate and stop hurting yourself,” he tells Ren sternly. “We made a bargain. And Snoke wants you in one piece.”

At the mention of the Supreme Leader’s name Ren flinches: he seems to shiver, something flashing in his eyes. But the next second his face is neutral again, his voice flat when he speaks:

“A bargain,” Ren repeats, “which you haven’t fulfilled your side of,” he reminds him.

_My side. Oh, stars._ Hux bites his lip: the delay. In the bizarreness of today’s events he’d forgotten all about his part in their deal. “You’re right,” he acknowledges. “I haven’t.” He swallows. “I’ll — I’ll do that now, then.”

Quickly Hux turns to go, feeling strangely chastised, displeased with himself for letting it slip his mind. He knows all too well how temperamental Ren can be, and should have known better than to leave his promise unfulfilled for this long: Ren, he knows, will find any excuse to back out of their “deal”; _and then he’ll start hurting himself and causing trouble again, and who knows where that will leave us when we get to Snoke._

“Hux.” Ren’s voice from the bed: Hux pauses at the door.

“Yes?”

A silence. Then —

“Thank you.”

Hux clears his throat.

“You’re welcome, Ren.”

*


	4. Chapter 4

*

Hux must now find a way to fulfil Ren’s request for a delay. He deliberates between speaking first to the captain or the pilots, and decides that the captain will likely provide more immediate and legitimate results; so he goes to the bridge to find her, steeling himself for a fight. She is, after all, under Snoke’s command, and in face of this Hux doesn’t know how far his own authority will go.

The captain is a petite and muscled woman, with creamy brown skin, sharp intelligent eyes, and thick black hair pulled tightly back beneath her cap. She stares suspiciously at Hux when he makes his request (making sure to sound as humble as he can, which probably isn’t all that much —  _I must admit I’m out of practice)._ But it’s to no avail.

“Sir, I have orders from Supreme Leader Snoke to bring Kylo Ren to him at once. The course has been set and we are already well on our way,” she tells him firmly. (Hux chafes at the stern tone she takes: _My captains would never dare —_ but reminds himself, again, that she does not answer to him). “We’ll be arriving in a matter of days — really, we could have been there by now, but we’ve been avoiding hyperspace — it’s almost certainly being monitored by the Resistance. There’s only so much slower we can go.”

“Then go that slowly,” Hux suggests in desperation. The captain frowns at him, looking supremely sceptical. Hux, frustrated, can only imagine how he looks to her: his head bandaged, wearing civilian clothes, a light growth of stubble on his jaw —  _not authoritative at all, I’d guess. Helping my case even further._ She raises her eyebrows and says nothing, apparently deliberating.

“ _Please,_ Captain,” Hux entreats her. “It’s for the sake of Lord Ren — his condition is unstable, and the medical staff think it unwise for him to be moved anytime soon,” he invents —  _there is_ some _truth there._ “We can’t arrive at Snoke’s headquarters with the lifeless body of his prized apprentice, can we?” he adds with the slightest hint of menace, smiling.

The captain sighs. “I suppose not, General,” she admits, clearly unimpressed with his tactics. She surveys his face, still unconvinced; but eventually she gives in. “All right. I’ll tell the pilots to take us by an even slower route…I can maybe squeeze out an extra week, if we’re lucky. If we’re _very_ lucky,” she adds sharply, seeing Hux’s look of surprised satisfaction. “I’d say we’re more likely to get an extra three days or so. _Sir.”_

“Thank you, Captain,” Hux tells her. He’s relieved, but still anxious — he hopes Ren will accept this, that it will be enough to appease him, and realises he doesn’t know what he’ll do if it isn’t. But: _later, later._ For now he has his small victory.

Hux returns to the medbay with his news. “Ren?”

Ren struggles to a seated position almost at once. He’d appeared to be asleep but clearly this isn’t the case. “Well?” he demands, sounding just as impatient and testy as he’d used to on Starkiller. _Reassuring, I suppose,_ Hux thinks wryly.

“The captain has agreed to delay for a few days,” Hux tells him. He folds his gloved hands in front of him and looks down at Ren — the latter shifts and mutters to himself in seeming displeasure, and Hux frowns. “This is what you wanted, is it not? I’ve done my side of the bargain,” he adds.

“But you haven’t done it _well enough,_ General,” Ren grumbles. “I need more time.”

“More time to do _what?”_ Hux demands, temper flaring indignantly.

“To _heal,_ first of all,” Ren counters, glancing pointedly at the bandages on his side, through which a rosy corona is beginning to flourish. Hux bites his lip, somewhat abashed: _well, yes, there is that._ “But I need time to — prepare myself,” Ren adds. “To grow strong again.”

“And how exactly do you plan to do that?” Hux asks. He gestures to Ren’s body, the wounds on his bare skin. “You’re in no state to — to train. Do you even have your lightsaber?” he asks, realising for the first time that he hasn’t seen it since the night of the girl’s escape.

“No,” Ren admits grudgingly after a moment. “It — got lost when I was injured.” He meets Hux’s eyes for a second before looking quickly away: he seems ashamed.

“Ah.” Hux considers: he realises he doesn’t actually know what _happened_ to Ren, how he made his way to the surface of the planet and then, somehow, got so terribly injured. In the confusion of the base’s collapse and its aftermath, and now these exceedingly queer last few days, he’s almost forgotten to wonder. “And — how, exactly, _were_ you injured?” Hux asks tentatively.

Ren’s eyes flick back to him, wary, defensive. Hux sees his jaw muscles tighten, his right fist loosely clench as if searching for its weapon, and he makes to back down — “That was impudent of me, I shouldn’t have asked,” he apologises, feeling completely strange doing so; but Ren gives a low noise of dismissal.

“It doesn’t matter,” he says. Carefully, he props himself up to sit taller, wincing at the movement of his injured side. He gestures to the chair, still beside the pod, where Hux had spent the night: “Sit down, General. This might take a while.”

Hux is taken aback. “You’re going to — tell me?” He’d not expected this at all.

Ren levels him with a contemptuous look. “Not like either of us has anything better to do.”

Hux can hardly argue with that: “I suppose you’re right.” Awkwardly, he sits down in what has now become _his_ chair; he laces his hands in his lap, feeling stiff and on-display. Hux clears his throat and pointedly avoids Ren’s trenchant silent gaze. “Well,” he says, all at once impatient, “if it’s going to take that long, you had better get started, hadn’t you?”

Ren sighs as if greatly inconvenienced. “Fine.”

He pauses another minute, though, and clears his throat, apparently deeply pondering where to begin: _oh, theatrics,_ Hux thinks irritably. But he does eventually speak.

“The girl never left the base. I sent a squadron looking for her, and they couldn’t find her anywhere — but I felt her. I knew she was still there,” Ren begins.

Hux is surprised. “Was she —  _is_ she — Force-sensitive, then?”

Ren nods. “Yes. And very strong.” His large nose wrinkles. “I felt her presence so acutely — I could tell she hadn’t left. I had all the hangars put on lockdown so she couldn’t steal a ship; but that was as far as I got.” He frowns deeply. “I was interrupted.”

He pauses. Hux senses that he’s doing so partly for dramatic effect —  _typical —_ and instinctively doesn’t want to give in. But he’s interested now, genuinely curious; _and besides — we have nothing else to do._ “Interrupted,” Hux repeats, as Ren waits for a cue to go on. “By what?”

“Another presence,” Ren intones. Hux fights the urge to roll his eyes. “My father’s presence.”

“What was your father doing on Starkiller?” Hux blurts out. Ever since he learned that Ren killed his father during the battle, this question has lingered at the back of his mind. It gives him some clue — and yet none — as to who Ren’s father _was —_ a pilot with the Resistance, a soldier? Or was he there separate of their cause, on his own mission — to find Ren, perhaps?

“My father,” Ren says slowly, “was the ex-Rebellion General Han Solo. My mother is Leia Organa, former princess of Alderaan and now the general at the head of the Resistance.”

Hux gapes. The first thing, absurdly, that he thinks is _Royalty. Ren is royalty._ (The second thing —  _I won’t just have Snoke to answer to if he dies)._

“I see,” Hux says, his words coming out slightly strangled. “Well.”

“Mm.” Ren surveys Hux’s face, seeming satisfied with the reaction he’s provoked.

“The girl, Rey, had stolen my father’s ship and escaped Jakku in it, with the traitor FN-2187 and the BB unit containing the map,” he continues. “My father and his Wookiee companion tracked down their ship and stole her back. They brought Rey and the traitor to Maz Kanata’s castle on Takodana, which is where the Order found them.” Hux nods in acknowledgement. “As you know, I took her prisoner there, and brought her back to the base to interrogate her,” Ren says. His face darkens, his heavy brows drawing angrily together. “It went wrong.

“She resisted me. I searched all her memories, combed thoroughly through them — I couldn’t find the map. She was somehow able to conceal it from me: I knew she’d seen it, but I couldn’t see what she’d seen.” He pauses now, fixes his eyes on Hux’s with urgency. “I know you, General, aren’t sensitive to the Force, but you must understand — that isn’t possible. It shouldn’t be possible. It _can’t be.”_

Ren takes a breath, briefly closing his eyes. When he opens them again they glimmer dangerously. His voice is slow and deadly measured. “She is completely untrained. Raw power, unrefined — and perhaps that’s how she did it.” He grits his teeth. “She blocked me out. Entirely. It was like I went blind. And then — then she turned it back on me.”

“How do you mean?” Hux speaks, feeling it’s dangerous to do so.

“She read my mind. She used the Force to get inside my head.” Ren’s eyes like a raging ocean, storms and squalls. “To do so requires _years_ of training. An incredible mastery of the Force, of oneself. And this _girl_ could do it.”

_(And what did she find, inside Kylo Ren’s head?_ Hux would like to know. He values his life too much to ask.)

All at once Ren stops. His hands fist in the blankets for a moment: he closes and then opens his dark eyes, taking a deep breath. Hux waits. Finally Ren speaks again, his voice strenuously composed:

“After that — I was shaken. I trained harder; I meditated and asked Snoke for his guidance. He wanted the girl,” Ren says flatly. “Wanted me to bring her to him. I had no choice; I would have done it.” His lips twist into a humourless smile. “But then the Resistance intervened.”

“So they did,” Hux agrees quietly. He thinks again of his life’s work up in flames: he’s not a romantic man, but if he was, he thinks he’d say his heart ached for it.

“My father came with them,” Ren announces tonelessly. “It seems my mother sent him, once they found out I was here. I suppose she hoped he could convince me to come home.” His voice wavers. “And — he did try to.”

Ren breathes in deeply. Hux thinks for a moment to tell him to stop, not to go on if it pains him, as it appears to do — but when Ren begins to speak again Hux thinks he understands, the catharsis of this, the need to examine and dissect all that has happened in order to begin to make sense of it. He’s feeling the same way himself.

“He found me after the attack had begun. I sensed him as soon as he came aboard the base. He found me, and he knew me — it had been years, but he knew me — he called me the name my mother gave me, and he begged me to come home with him,” Ren says all in a rush. “He told me…he said that Snoke was using me. That once he’d finished with me he would crush me.” Ren looks up from where he’s been staring at his hands, fiddling with the blankets. “And it was like he had read my mind, too. It was like he knew that that had been my fear all along: that instead of grooming me for greatness like he promised, Snoke was using me as a means to an end, and would dispose of me when he’d finished.” Ren takes a rasping shuddering breath, wincing at the pain in his side.

“Snoke taught me that the light and dark sides of the Force were both at work in me,” he says abruptly. “I knew this — I knew my family’s history; I knew there was something special about me and my abilities.” Ren bites his full lower lip, hard. “My mother — she’s Force-sensitive; I get it from her. And,” he adds quietly, “from my grandfather. Darth Vader.”

Upon learning who Ren’s parents were, Hux had of course understood this connection as well, but hearing Ren say the name of the man who was once the most feared Sith lord in the galaxy still makes him shiver. “I see,” he says softly, afraid to shatter the glass tension in the air.

Ren continues doggedly. “Snoke knew who I was. He recognised that I was special — that I could, in the right hands, be unstoppable. He told me that the blend of dark and light in me was why he chose me to be his apprentice. He wanted me to reach my full potential — which was — which _could have been —_ to be the greatest Force-user the galaxy had ever known.” He flinches. “But it hurt me,” he says blankly. “I was at war with myself. And it hurt.”

Hux thinks he understands.

“Eventually, Snoke began to care less about the power of the light,” Ren tells him. “He began to believe — and to teach me — that it was weak, vulnerable, easily overcome. I didn’t entirely believe him,” he adds, with the ghost of a smile: Hux is struck by the sudden image of a younger Ren, beginning to be wary of the master he has known and trusted — beginning, perhaps, to recognise that he is being made into a pawn — and a chill runs down his spine.

“He began to train me more in the ways of the dark side. And the more I learned, the more it hurt,” Ren says bluntly. “The pain grew worse and worse. Snoke knew this. He said killing my father would make it stop,” Ren says. “He said it would get rid of the last of the light and finally let me use my powers to their fullest capabilities.” He laughs without humour. “It didn’t,” he notes ironically. “Obviously.”

“But you killed him anyway,” Hux says, without blame.

“Yes. I killed him.”

“And your injuries?”

Ren gives a groan. “The Wookiee,” he says. He flinches, remembering something: his voice is distant when he continues. “My father’s closest friend,” he says softly. “He saw him die. He shot me in the side.”

_So I was right._ Hux winces, imagining the pain. “You knew him?”

Ren nods slowly. “Chewbacca,” he says. “He and my father — they took me flying with them, when I was young,” he adds abruptly, something flickering in his eyes — and then just as abruptly he stops. His eyes seem to shutter, a curtain drawn across his face: _So we’ve reached forbidden ground._

“There you have it,” Ren says candidly after a moment of shifting silence. “That’s how I was injured.” He seems to draw into himself, his big body growing smaller: his shoulders curve slightly inward, he ducks his head. “I hope that satisfies your curiosity.”

If anything, it only deepens it, and Hux thinks Ren knows this, too; but he can sense that to ask for more information now would be unwise. Ren has clearly been exhausted: he’s said so much, far more than Hux had thought to hear; _and yet I still don’t know enough, don’t know it all._

“It does. Thank you,” Hux says, after another pause. He clears his throat. “Do you — need anything?” he asks awkwardly. “Water? More medication?”

“No. Thank you.”

“All right.”

Ren sighs heavily. “I — I think I’ll sleep now. Don’t change my bandages until I wake up again,” he requests suddenly. “Please.”

Hux nods, once, twice. “Of course.”

Ren closes his eyes. He breathes deeply, his broad chest rising for a sustained impossible moment and then falling again, a quiet sigh escaping his lips. He seems to drift into sleep at once, as if he’s fulfilled some pressing task and now, finally, he can rest.

*


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I graduate high school this weekend! As such, the rest of the week is going to be kind of insane, so here — have some more Tragic Kylux Backstories and Unresolved Romantic Tension™ a couple days ahead of schedule. Thank you _so_ much to everyone who's been reading, commenting, and leaving kudos so far. ❤︎

*

Hux stares at Ren’s peaceful form as he sleeps, attempting to process all that he’s just heard. _Han Solo was his father._ Hux has heard of the smuggler-turned-soldier, of course — a hero of the Galactic Civil War, his name tossed spitefully around in Hux’s history courses at the Academy; and his wife’s too, Leia Organa, princess-senator-general-rebel. Hux could not have imagined less likely parents for Kylo Ren if he tried.

And Ren has killed his father. Under Snoke’s orders, apparently, or at least his influence: Hux recalls the way Ren’s voice had broken when speaking of the “light” inside him, and Snoke’s belief that it was necessary for him to extinguish it with this final, irrevocable act; and he knows that Ren has not been even remotely freed from his pain, that it is now — and will perhaps continue to get — only worse.

For the first time he feels compassion for Kylo Ren.

Not contempt anymore; not pity, even. He supposes he’s always known, on some level, that Ren’s erratic behaviour and wild mood swings — his tantrums and his insolence — all had to have some deeper cause; and now here it is. Ren had said it himself: _I was at war with myself._

Hux is beginning to feel like collateral damage. He doesn’t know if he minds.

He studies Ren’s sleeping face. A strange face, heavy-featured and mismatched: the plush well-formed lips at odds with the nose, which juts prow-like from the high hollow cheeks; the big dark-brown eyes, closed now in sleep, boundlessly expressive in waking. The various birthmarks and freckles dotting the skin, ink-spots scattered with a careless hand; and now the cut, red and shiny _(cauterised_ , Hux realises — realises, too, that he still doesn’t know how _this_ wound came about, but recognising now that it must be from a lightsaber —  _but whose?)_ and held together with a dozen near-transparent stitches. An archaic medical practice, but still necessary with a wound —especially facial — of such length and depth; Hux knows they’re treated with a compound that reduces scarring as much as possible, but that there’s no way Ren will escape without some kind of disfigurement. _Shame._

It’s late. It’s been some hours since Hux has taken his medication, and he realises now how much he needs it; quickly he fetches a glass of water and pops two of the blue tablets. Again they kick in almost at once —  _thank the stars for modern medicine —_ and Hux sighs, deeply, wearily. He doesn’t relish another night in the stiff chair at Ren’s bedside — he thinks of the officers’ quarters, suspects the offer to use them still stands — takes an uncertain step or two towards the doors — and then stops. _To leave him now would be abandonment._

He’ll stay.

He would, however, like to be more comfortable: his back is horribly stiff and his neck feels out-of-joint. A brief search of the many cabinets and cupboards in the medbay produces a blanket and two pillows. Hux thinks longingly for a moment of his Ramordian silk pyjamas, also left behind on Starkiller, and resigns himself to sleeping once again in the plain but comfortable clothes the ship’s personnel has provided for him. They’re getting terribly wrinkled, and it irks him, but he’s reluctant to ask for sleeping clothes, especially after his rather inconvenient request from earlier today. He sighs. _I’ll make do._

He removes his gloves and his jacket, folds them neatly and lays them on the floor. Left in shirt and trousers he arranges one pillow behind him in the chair to support his back, tucks the blanket around his shoulders and sticks the other pillow behind his neck. Not comfortable, by any stretch —  _I never thought I’d miss the bunks at the Academy —_ but it’s at least somewhat of an improvement; _and I won’t have to leave Ren. In case he needs anything._

Hux settles in to his temporary bed. The painkillers calm him, dull the throbbing ache in his head; he tries very hard to put aside all Ren’s told him and just go to sleep. _I’ll find out more in the morning._ He closes his eyes.

*

The nightmares won’t leave him.

Ren had hoped, on some level, that telling Hux what happened would make things better: that acknowledging the disease would eradicate the symptoms, as it were. But it didn’t work. _I’m not surprised._

Falling back into the dream almost feels like coming home. Here he is on the bridge again, suspended hundreds of feet in the air on the steel catwalk which now feels so fragile: his father before him, such pain in his eyes. _He’s using you. Come home._ Ren’s lightsaber clasped in both their hands: he hears his own voice, feels tears blur his vision as the words are ripped from his throat:

_I’m being torn apart. I know what I have to do, but I don’t know if I have the strength to do it. Will you help me?_

His father: seeing salvation for him, realising his efforts had not been in vain. Relief in his face, and a terrible understanding. _Anything._

Fingers moving to ignite the weapon — but are they his own or his father’s? Ren doesn’t know which is worse. The knowledge in his father’s eyes, the blade sinking through his chest: Ren can hardly see for crying: and his father’s hand sliding from his cheek as he falls, falls…

“Thank you,” he’d whispered, broken, unwilling, then — but _“NO!”_ Ren cries now, in his head. He stretches out a desperate hand to grab at the air; but it’s too late now, just as it was then. He stands shaking on the edge of the catwalk, his saber a dead weight in his hand; staring down into the smoky chasm watching his father’s body plummet, and he steels himself to fall too, to put an end to this — but something is holding him back: a sinister voice in his ear, a cold ancient hand on his shoulder —  _Your training is not yet complete…_

Ren starts awake with a yell.

The dark of the medbay closes in on him. His whole body shudders, arching off the mattress as if trying to shake itself free of the dream, and a groan escapes his lips. His chest heaves; he feels a dampness on his cheeks, tears running into the stitched-up gash. He clenches his fists and trembles, trying and failing to restrain a choked-off sob. _No. No. Please._

Movement in the dark — close — a shifting of fabric, something soft falling to the floor. “Ren?” A voice — Hux’s voice — disembodied, disturbed. “Is everything all right?” He comes closer, frowning blearily: Ren stares up at him, wordless and shaking.

“Ren. _Ren._ What happened? Are you in pain?”: Hux fully awakened now, on alert at seeing Ren’s face, the terror in his eyes. “Does it hurt?” Hux asks him urgently.

“No,” Ren whispers. “No.”

“What is it? What happened?”

“Nothing,” Ren says quietly, his heart’s erratic beat beginning to slow. “Nothing.”

“You’re sure you’re not in pain?” Hux’s eyes are sharp, alert — vivid green against the pallor of his face in the dark. His hair is mussed: he wears only an undershirt and trousers, he’s clearly just awoken. Ren feels suddenly ashamed.

“No. I’m not.”

“What woke you, then?”

Ren swallows. “I — a nightmare.”

At this Hux looks relieved. “Oh. A nightmare.”

“Yes.”

“Do you — need anything? Water? Meds?” Hux asks uncomfortably.

Ren gingerly puts a hand to his side, feels blood seeping through the bandages. “These should probably be changed.”

Hux snaps to attention. “Right. Yes.” Ren sits up obediently; Hux goes at once to the left side of the pod, begins to strip away the bloodied dressings. “This is looking better,” he comments. “Bleeding a little less.”

“That’s good,” Ren replies vaguely.

“Let me know if I’m hurting you.”

“Mm. I will.”

Hux carries on: the motions almost rote by now, brisk and efficient. There is a silence. Ren looks uncertainly up at Hux: he pauses in his work, frowns at Ren, feeling his eyes on him.

“Yes? Did that hurt?”

“No.” Ren looks away, shifts. “Do you mind — would you just — talk to me?”

“I’m sorry?”

“Just — talk. About anything.” Ren bites his lip. “I don’t want to think about it. The dream.”

“Oh.” Hux is still for a second, the two loose ends of the bandage, about to be knotted, forgotten in his hand. “Ah — yes. All right. About what?”

“Anything,” Ren repeats tiredly. “The rules of dejarik. Your headache. Your childhood hopes and dreams. The technical specifications of the _Finalizer_ , I don’t know — it doesn’t matter.”

“How did you know I had a —”

“You’re not as indecipherable as you believe you are, General.” Ren smiles tightly, without humour. “Please. Talk.”

“Well. Ah.” The bandage has been tied: Hux realises he’s still hovering awkwardly over Ren, and moves hastily away. He sanitises his hands and then comes to sit in his chair, feeling on-show again. Ren’s eyes follow him, fix on him as he begins to speak, quickly, not thinking:

“I was born on Arkanis — my father was the commandant of the Academy there. He’d fought in the Clone Wars, and when the Civil War broke out he fought in that, too.” Hux winces. He’s suddenly afraid to go on, wondering why by all the stars he’s chosen _this,_ of all things, to tell Ren; but then Ren looks at him and frowns slightly, and Hux knows that he needs him to keep talking and _soon._

He goes on.

“I was four years old when the Empire fell. It changed my father. He’d dedicated himself completely to the Empire and its cause, and without it — it was like he didn’t know who he was. My mother and me — he hardly knew _us_ anymore — when he insisted that we go into hiding with the rest of the former Imperials in the Unknown Regions, my mother couldn’t take it. She left him, and left me —”

Hux stops abruptly, all at once not caring about Ren’s need for distraction. “Why am I telling you this?” he demands. “Can’t you just read my mind if you want to know all of this so badly?” he asks irritably, flustered and defensive.

Ren’s eyebrows lift with improbable nonchalance. “I didn’t ask you to tell me any of this,” he reminds Hux, infuriatingly calmly. “I just told you to talk.”

Hux narrows his eyes at him, suspicious: Ren has never used the Force to probe his mind, and as such, he can’t tell if he’s doing it now to loosen his tongue — or if, stranger still, Hux is in fact just _saying_ these things of his own volition. He hasn’t spoken of his mother in years: he was old enough when she left to remember her and miss her, but young enough to be moulded by his father to disapprove of her and to resent her — or so the elder Hux had hoped. But Hux junior never quite got to that point. He misses his mother (or his memory of her) still, and the older he gets — the more like his father he becomes, intentionally or not — the more he understands her decision.

“I told you to talk,” Ren repeats, after a moment of tense silence. He sounds blasé enough, but Hux detects a genuine insistence in his voice: _he’s afraid to go back to the nightmare._ Hux struggles briefly — not wanting to embarrass himself further, but fearing the consequences of allowing Ren to slip back into the dreams which are tormenting him. He knows he has no choice.

“You could _make_ me talk, couldn’t you?” Hux asks tartly anyway. “If I refused.”

Ren looks surprised. “Well — yes. Obviously.” He frowns. “But I wouldn’t,” he adds, sounding slightly perturbed at Hux’s implication.

“You wouldn’t?”

“No,” Ren answers him, frowning deeper still. “You aren’t a prisoner, General. It would be a misuse of my powers to _make_ you talk to me for my own distraction.”

“You could read my mind, though,” Hux presses. “I wouldn’t have to talk at all.”

Ren looks taken aback. When he responds he is cautious: “Yes. I _could._ But I’m not going to.”

(Hux probably imagines the _Unless you want me to_ that is left unsaid).

“Why not?”

“Like I said. You aren’t a prisoner.” Ren looks curiously at him. “I’m trying to learn about you through information willingly volunteered. We’re — two runaways, having a conversation.” _Aren’t we?_ his eyes seem to ask.

“Two runaways,” Hux repeats, distracted: absorbing the term, turning it over. “Yes. Yes, I suppose that is what we are now. Strange.”

“Strange,” Ren agrees.

There is a pause.

“I’ve never read your mind,” Ren volunteers, “but I _can_ read your…emotions.”

“You can?” Hux blinks. He’s not sure which of these revelations is the more surprising.

Ren nods quickly, his eyes shifting. “Not outwardly. Your physicality hardly ever betrays what you’re feeling — except just now, with your headache — although whether I could tell that from the bandage or your body language is a choice I’ll let you make.”

( _A joke._ And does he smile, just briefly, at Hux? Hux can’t tell. A twist of warmth in his stomach. _Maybe)._

“But you _feel_ very loudly, General,” Ren adds. “Inside your head, that is.”

“I do?” Hux’s heartbeat speeds up.

Ren nods. “Your emotions are — frankly, they’re fascinating,” he says bluntly. “You feel a great many things, but you don’t address the vast majority of them. You have a larger capacity and range of emotions than almost anyone I’ve ever known, but you compartmentalise so _efficiently_ and don’t let any of them show, or even begin to affect you,” Ren rattles off as if from a textbook. “You seem to know on some level how _much_ you would feel if you let yourself, and how that could be a disadvantage to you; so, in typically strategic fashion, you simply _don’t,”_ Ren says, excitement creeping into his tone. Hux frowns. “It’s like you _choose_ what to feel. You have a level of control over yourself that is almost Jedi-like, really…” Ren trails off, seeming to lose himself for a moment. But in a second he’s back, and he looks Hux squarely in the eye as he concludes, “So, there: fascinating.”

“I see,” Hux says after a moment, trying not to show Ren how much this stark and yet thoughtful assessment has, in fact —  _ha —_ affected him. “Well. I’m glad I can provide such _interesting_ food for thought,” he says coldly. “From a scientific point of view, at least. Something to study — is that how you see me, Ren?”

Ren flinches. “I didn’t mean it like that.”

“Oh? Didn’t you?” Hux asks acidly. “My mistake, then.”

 Ren is silent.

“What am I feeling right now?” Hux asks abruptly.

Ren looks up. He surveys Hux’s face, unsure if he’s serious — and indeed, Hux himself isn’t sure why he asked; if he’s just trying to provoke Kylo or if, frighteningly, he actually wants him to tell him: to prove what he’s said. He doesn’t have time to make a decision on this before Ren speaks.

“You’re afraid of me,” Ren says simply. “You’re — intrigued: you want to know what I can do, but it’s been so long since you let anyone in that you’re afraid I’ll end up hurting you. You’re shocked, now, that I’m telling you this,” he says. “Disgusted, too. You don’t know what to think. You’re suspicious, but there — still — always — curious. Entranced,” he adds, almost bashful. “And there’s something — more —”

At once he stops.

“What?” Hux asks, defensiveness creeping unconsciously into his voice. He swallows.

“Nothing. It’s nothing.” Ren looks away.

Hux feels his face colour. He wants, for one mad moment, to _dare_ Ren to say it, to admit those deepest things that Hux won’t even admit to himself (and in doing so, to make them real) — but Hux is not mad. Hux is a man of reason and composure and if he doesn’t admit something even to himself, it is for a good reason. _It must be._

Another silence.

“Do you need me to keep talking?” Hux asks clumsily, deciding to pretend that the last things they’d said hadn’t been spoken at all.

Luckily Ren seems willing to play along with this fiction. He closes his eyes, seems to take stock; opens them again: “No. Thank you. I feel — better.”

“Will you sleep again?”

“Yes. I think so.”

“All right.”

He does; and the nightmare does not return.

*


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm getting my wisdom teeth out tomorrow, so here, you'd best take this while I'm still coherent. :)

*

When Hux wakes the next morning, slumped uncomfortably in his chair, it is to Ren’s gaze fixed intently on him from the bed. Hux starts, says in surprise, “Good morning.”

“Good morning, General. Sleep well?” Ren asks, his voice neutral.

_So we’re still pretending nothing happened,_ Hux observes. _Well. Nothing did. Good._

“Yes, thank you,” Hux replies. “And you? How long have you been awake?” he asks, realising he has no idea what time it is; he checks his chrono and finds it’s already 0900 hours. His eyebrows shoot up: he didn’t even used to sleep this late on his days off at the Academy.

“About an hour,” Ren answers. He gestures to his side. “My bandages need changing again.”

Hux frowns. He registers that if Ren has been awake for an hour, he has also, quite possibly and in fact alarmingly likely — not having anything else to do, anywhere else to go — been sitting and _staring at Hux_ for an hour. He blinks, unsure what to do with this conclusion. “You could have called for a nurse —”

“One was in here earlier to check on me. I told her not to do it,” Ren says, matter-of-fact.

“Oh — I see,” Hux replies dazedly. “Er — you could have woken me,” he adds, feeling his face grow hot.

“I didn’t want to.” Ren smiles briefly. “If you don’t mind?” He indicates his side again.

“Right. Yes. Of course,” Hux stammers, rising quickly. He’s chilled without the blanket; he goes to his jacket folded on the floor and shrugs it on, but forgoes the gloves for the sake of speed. He washes his hands and goes to Ren’s side, unwinds the bandages — which are considerably, noticeably cleaner now, even more so than they were in the night. This seems somehow ominous: _the faster he heals means the less of a delay we can excuse._

_And what does that mean, in itself?_   Hux doesn’t know. He’s not sure he wants to find out.

“Looking even better now,” Hux comments, at the same time as Ren says, “Do you mind if I talk?”

Hux’s face, absurdly, colours. He and Ren exchange an awkward glance and then Hux says, “No. No. Of course not; go ahead.”

Ren nods in acknowledgement. “I suppose I’ll keep talking about what happened on Starkiller,” he says, rather listlessly, as if this is the only suitable topic of conversation but not one that interests him at all.

 “If you’d like,” Hux replies. Ren doesn’t speak. “Where would you like to begin?” Hux prompts him unsurely, after a moment. “Or — go on from, I suppose.”

“I don’t know.”

“You were telling me about your father — and Snoke —”

“I don’t want to talk about them.” Ren’s words are deadly final.

“Oh. Very well.” Hux clears his throat. He catches sight of Ren’s stitches, glowing oddly in the faint light emitted by the pod. “Your face, then. How was that injured?”

Ren sits up to let Hux wrap the bandage around his torso. “The girl,” he says dully.

 “The _girl?_ Really?” Hux’s eyebrows rise in genuine surprise. “My, Ren,” he remarks ironically. “I only caught a glimpse of her, but is she not quite _young?_ And _small?”_

Ren, lying sullenly back on his pillows, glares at him; but the usual venom in his eyes is subdued. “Yes,” he acknowledges gruffly. “But _very strong_ with the Force,” he insists. “She had a lightsaber — I don’t know where she got it, it could have been anywhere in the galaxy — and somehow she knew how to use it. It _let her_ use it,” he explains fervently.

“Let her?”

“Each Force user crafts their own saber,” Ren elaborates. “You _could_ use someone else’s, but it will always respond best to the being who designed and crafted it.” He grimaces, embarrassed, and speaks his next words with reluctance. “Except in certain cases — hereditary cases. In _those_ cases, a saber can be passed down from one generation to the next and be used equally well by each Force user who inherits it.” He finishes speaking and waits to see if Hux understands.

“To whom did Rey’s saber previously belong?” Hux asks slowly.

“My uncle. Luke Skywalker,” Ren tells him, seeming pleased that Hux has glommed on so quickly.

Hux is stunned. “So the girl — she is your _cousin?”_

“It would appear so,” Ren says drily. “Or else she’s very, very lucky.” He sighs.

“And she did this to your face.”

“Yes.” Ren closes his eyes as Hux, very gently, applies a bacta-soaked cloth to his stitches. “We fought, on the surface of the base; she was strong, much stronger than she should’ve been, as I said —  _Oh._ Your hands are cold,” he says, flinching when Hux’s fingers brush his cheek.

Hux jerks back. “Are they?” He frowns. “Perhaps you’re feverish.” Ren opens his eyes. Hesitant, Hux lifts a hand and lays the back of it on Ren’s forehead. His skin is warm, but not hot — “No fever,” he murmurs. He knows that this is a good thing, that Ren is getting better; but again the hesitation, the feeling of foreboding —  _how much longer can we possibly delay?_

“You’ve never touched me without your gloves before,” Ren comments unexpectedly. He meets Hux’s eyes.

Hux is taken aback. “What? — well, I changed your bandages in the night, and I wasn’t wearing them then —”

Ren shakes his head with a childish dismissiveness. “That was different.”

Hux, perplexed, frowns. He swallows hard, remembers again Ren and the nurses that first day. “Oh. Well — do you…mind?”

 “No.”

Their eyes are locked. Hux is suddenly very aware of the distance between them — or rather, the lack of it: he’s bent close over Kylo, their faces close — his hand still on Ren’s forehead, and those dark eyes probing into his: he recalls what Ren had said about being able to read his emotions, and wonders for a wild moment what exactly he’s picking up now —

Ren kisses him.

Hux is so surprised that he doesn’t have time to realise he shouldn’t be. _“Kylo_ —”

The cloth in his hand falls abandoned on Ren’s pillow.

Hux breathes in as his eyes close of their own volition; he finds himself kissing him back. Kylo’s lips are warm and insistent, hesitant but sure; his hands reach up, alight strong and warm on Hux’s slim shoulders — one curls round the nape of Hux’s neck, large and somehow comforting. Without breaking the kiss Ren sits up, pulling Hux to sit down at his side. Hux’s hands find their way to Ren’s thick wild hair: carefully he threads his fingers through it, clenches a gentle fist. Ren says, softly, _“Oh” —_

And then Hux pulls back.

Footsteps in the corridor: worry in Ren’s eyes. His hair falls from Hux’s fingers as Hux stands, quickly, his face flushed, and picks up the dampened cloth. Without meeting Ren’s eyes he begins to dab bacta onto his stitches again: brisk and industrious, almost too hard. Ren winces — and then the door to the medbay opens and the grey-haired nurse comes in. She looks trepidatious at first, but when she catches sight of Ren laying still as Hux tends to him, her relief is immediately apparent.

“Decided to co-operate, have we, Lord Ren?” she asks with strained joviality, coming closer (but not too close) to the pod.

Hux carries on with his work even though each stitch is now perfectly clean — the swelling has started to go down considerably, and even the eerie shininess has dulled; he doesn’t need to be paying the wound this much attention — but he’s afraid to turn to the nurse and look her in the eyes, afraid of what she might find there. His heart is still pounding: he wonders if Ren can hear it.

“Yes, ma’am,” Ren says. Hux has never known him to sound _humble._ “Like I said earlier, Hux was happy to do it.”

“Absolutely,” Hux manages. He forces himself to turn round and smile at the nurse. “I’ve got everything under control,” he tells her as confidently as he can. “We’ll be fine for the rest of the day, I think,” he adds smoothly. “Thank you.”

The nurse pauses. Her eyebrows lift sceptically. “You’re sure, sir?”

“Yes. Completely.”

She leaves, clearly still unconvinced. The door clicks shut behind her.

Hux turns back to Ren. Almost at once Ren’s mouth is on his again, hungry, searching; Hux kisses him back with a startling urgency, realising for the first time how much he wants this, has wanted it — but too how dangerous this is, how completely foolhardy — “Ren,” he gasps at last, pulling back and regretting it at once. “Ren. We can’t.”

Ren’s eyes, maddeningly dark and serene — but scared, too: an anxious boy beneath the cocky veneer. “Why not?”

Hux gives a sharp humourless laugh. “Would you like a list?” He looks wildly around, fearing suddenly that the nurse has come back — or worse, hadn’t left at all — and has seen the whole thing; _and what was it, anyway?_ Ren teasing him, in all likelihood: detecting a shade of _something_ in Hux’s apparently complex emotional palette and turning it on him in a bit of spiteful fun. _But his eyes —_

There it is, again, still: that raw vulnerable look in Kylo’s dark eyes. A look of want and fear, at war with each other. A startling unbidden thought: _Have those, too, been tearing him apart?_

“I’m sorry,” Ren says quietly.

Hux stares blankly at him. Inside his head he is screaming. He doesn’t know what to say.

So he goes.

*

He can’t think.

All Hux knows is he needs to get out of the medbay, out of that crippling tender look in Ren’s eyes and the soft warmth of his lips and everything that’s just happened. He stands stock-still in the corridor as the door slams behind him and listens to the sound as it echoes. _Ren._

He needs to move, to do something. He takes off at once down the hallway, straightening his jacket and realising belatedly that he left his gloves on the medbay floor. His hands — slim, pale, hatefully delicate always — seem suddenly not to belong to him at all —  _these hands in Ren’s hair, his mouth on mine —_ and he shoves them in his pockets so he doesn’t have to see them swinging at his sides. _A plan. I need a plan._

He declares to himself, rather than decides, that he’ll sleep in the officers’ cabin tonight, and, if at all possible, each subsequent night of this damned _delay._ Hux makes a sharp right and stalks furiously in the direction of these quarters, forcing himself to get as far from the medbay as he possibly can — not to think of Ren and his eyes, his _eyes_. Instead he focuses on thoughts of the sonic shower, clean sleeping clothes —  _yes, and a proper bed …_

He pushes away the image of Ren waking, terrified and screaming, from a nightmare, and finding himself alone. He quickens his pace as if to outrun his thoughts.

“Lieutenant,” Hux calls out sharply to the first officer he encounters. The young man stops, alarmed, and frowns, not recognising him at first — and then his eyes widen and he snaps out a hasty salute.

“General, sir!”

“Are the officers’ quarters still free?” Hux demands.

The young man nods quickly, looking frightened by the fervour in his eyes. “Yes, sir.”

“Thank you. That will be all.”

“Yes, sir!”

The cabin is smaller than Hux’s on Starkiller, and even on the _Finalizer:_ understandable given the comparative size of this ship. It’s sparsely furnished, decorated in monochrome, but it’s tidy and well-maintained and will do well enough. Hux stumbles into the refresher; he strips blindly, steps into the shower. He slumps against the black wall like a marionette with cut strings as the sonic waves begin gently to pulse and the weight of recent events bears fully down on him at last.

_What am I doing?_

Hux presses a hand to his eyes. Has this headache been lurking in the back of his head all along, or has it just hit him now, like another fall of rock on the crumbling base — like Ren’s kiss, unforeseen but (somehow, terribly, incredibly) inevitable? The pain comes in throbbing waves with the pounding of his heart in his ears.

He is unable not to think about the kiss for any longer. It had felt — Hux now realises — startlingly like a summit had been reached, a turning-point attained; like it had been the destination they’d been fumbling toward all along. Hux wonders with a chill if Ren had somehow _planned_ it, orchestrated the situation to ensure that precise happenstance: but then he recalls again that look of craving innocence in Kylo’s eyes, the clumsy urgent pressure of his lips. _No. He can’t have._ He’d wanted it, clearly —  _and_ , Hux realises with yet another shock, _perhaps for some time_  — but he hadn’t planned any of it. _Hoped_ for it _,_ maybe; but, Hux reminds himself with disbelief, _he himself_ is the cold strategist, and Ren the unpredictable enfant terrible. _Of course he hadn’t planned it._

He starts to rationalise. He doesn’t know what else he can do. _It was simply Ren losing control of himself. He’s never been good at containing or hiding his emotions, channelling them appropriately_ — _he has found me to be the one thing he can cling to after his trauma, and he has developed an attachment forthwith._

_Yes_ — _an_ attachment. _Not an affection. Not a connection. A fragile, unfounded, childlike attachment. He has never had the chance to develop any kind of emotional ground rules, a set of instructions, per se,_ Hux tells himself fiercely, fighting off his screaming doubts with every further thought. _And so he kissed me because he didn’t know what else to do. Yes. That must be it,_ he thinks. _That_ must _be it —_ because he doesn’t know what he’ll do if it’s not.

And it’s not.

Of course it’s not. He knows, knows, has always known that it’s not. Ren had not lost control. Ren had been calm and level-headed: even more so, Hux acknowledges unwillingly, than Hux himself, who’d still been reeling from Ren’s probing assessment of him. He hadn’t been thinking; Ren had had the upper hand, and he’d taken advantage of… _what?_

_My — feelings for him. Toward him. Care, concern: attachment._

_I might as well stop pretending,_ he thinks in despair, as his carefully constructed web of excuses comes tumbling down silently around him: the death of Starkiller in miniature. _Lies. All lies._

He has been taking care of Ren only because it would be what Snoke wants. _Lie._ Hux has, at best, grudging respect for Snoke’s authority: his status as a religious leader _(if that is, in fact, what he is)_ does not qualify him for military rule (in Hux’s eyes, at least), and ever since Snoke’s assumption of the Order’s leadership Hux has quietly resented being under his thumb. For these last days he has clung to Snoke’s orders, both explicit and implied, as a blind man clings to a cane: the only island in a sea of darkness, something to keep him upright and moving forward. _Find Ren. Save Ren. Heal Ren. Bring Ren to me._ Obeyed — obeyed — questionable — ignored. _And ignored why?_

Because he is no longer blind. He is seeing a light, or beginning to — the light in Ren, his true self: the self that fears Snoke and resents him; the self that will be tortured and crushed and killed, maybe, if Hux fulfils his orders. Hux, now, is clinging to this light, just as Ren is clinging to him. He is taking care of Ren because Ren wants him to —  _Ren needs me to._

And because he wants to.

Hux sees again and again the fragile fear in Ren’s eyes, like the eyes of a small boy thrown into a warzone, and he knows with a bone-deep certainty that he cannot abandon him now — and, in truth, never could have. The disbelief and irritation in those early hours —  _can Snoke not find another, is Ren’s life even worth it?:_ another lie. Hux has always known that Ren is a piece in some larger game, but he is only now beginning to realise that the entire outcome hinges on him: and that this pressure is killing him.

The shower’s programmed ten-minute cycle comes slowly to an end. Hux opens his eyes, feeling the sonic waves fade away; he runs an absent hand through his hair and finds it clean. A further tentative press on his head wound reassures him that although it’s still tender, it’s not bleeding. Hux steps sluggishly out of the shower, unwilling to leave the false sanctuary of its shining black walls. He finds a towel in one of the cupboards (technically unnecessary with a sonic, but a homey touch all the same) and wraps it around his waist; he shaves for the first time in days and feels his heart rate beginning to slow.

The cut on his head is red and visible through his dishevelled hair. Hux turns his attention to it now, carefully applying bacta but unable to find a bandage. When that’s done he combs his hair with his fingers, arranging it as neatly as he can without his usual pomade. Sighing, he gives up, and surveys his own drawn face. He doesn’t like what he sees. His skin is pale, nearly bloodless: his eyes, dark-circled, stand out eerily bright against the freckled pallor, and the look in them is afraid.

The thought comes unbidden: _I have to go back to him._

Hux turns abruptly away from his own knowing eyes in the mirror. _I can’t. Not yet._

He goes into the sleeping area and finds, to his surprise, clean sleeping clothes. The trousers are too short on him and the shirt too wide in the shoulders – it’s also only the mid-afternoon. But he dons them eagerly anyway; and then, telling himself he’ll only rest for a moment, lays wearily down on the bed.

He dreams of Ren. It’s not the first time.

*


	7. Chapter 7

*

Hux is jolted awake some time later by a frantic hammering at the door.

“General, sir!” calls an agitated female voice. “Sir, _please!”_

Hux stumbles to the door and wrenches it open, blinking groggily. He finds the younger nurse on the threshold, looking absolutely panicked. “Come quickly, won’t you, sir?” she implores him.

“For stars’ sake, what is it?” Hux asks, his voice half-fogged with sleep, but even before the terrified girl responds he knows it’s going to be —

“Lord Ren, sir,” the nurse tells him in despair. “He’s — gotten worse. Much worse.”

All at once Hux is as awake as if he’d just been doused with cold water. Suddenly aware of how ridiculous he must look, he goes quickly back to where his jacket lies discarded, and throws it on over his rumpled too-big shirt. He slept with his chrono on, and checks it now: it’s after 2100 hours. His eyes widen.

“Worse how? Bleeding again?” Hux demands, hastening now to put on his boots.

The nurse shakes her head. “No, sir.” She hesitates. “He’s — well, we’re not sure what’s wrong with him,” she says. “He keeps — babbling — he says he’s _failed_ again, he says he’s weak —” She breaks off and stares at Hux, completely at a loss. “He asked for you. That’s all we could really understand.”

This is all Hux needs. “Take me to him.”

Hurrying through the halls, trailed by the fretful nurse, Hux can hear shouting even before they arrive. He recognises Ren’s voice and further quickens his pace. They cross the corridor to the medbay and Hux stops in his tracks, stunned by what he sees.

The situation is even worse than he had expected. Ren is sitting bolt upright in bed with his legs, clad in loose sleeping pants, drawn childlike to his chest. The older nurse and three med-droids are clustered around him. They seem to be trying to get him to sit still so that they can reinsert his IV — which, Hux realises with a sick jolt, Ren must have ripped out of his hand. But every time they approach him — the droids beeping in concern, the older nurse laying a firm hand on his arm — Ren shies away and strikes blindly out at them. His chest heaves with panicked breaths and his eyes dart wildly: his lips move, and as he and the nurse come closer Hux can hear him muttering frantically, “I need the pain — Snoke says so — I must not give _in —_ ”

“I’ve brought the General, ma’am,” the younger nurse calls breathlessly. Her colleague looks up from her futile efforts and comes quickly over to them, a frown etched deep in her face.

“We thought maybe he’d relax if you were here, sir,” the older woman tells Hux tensely. “It worked before — and we think he said your name once or twice. It sounded like he was asking for you.” She looks intently at Hux, waiting for a response. As her eyes bore into his he wonders, again, if she’d seen anything earlier — it’s impossible to tell for sure, and this uncertainty fills him with an intangible dread.

Hux swallows and breaks eye contact. “Let me see what I can do.”

He goes to Ren’s bedside. The droids draw back to let him approach — none of them are humanoid, but Hux swears they look relieved to give up their task and pass it on to him. Ren tosses his head, still mumbling to himself: his hands clench and unclench reflexively in the sheets.

“Kylo.”

Ren’s head snaps in his direction. His eyes meet Hux’s, and for an instant there is a look of absolute relief there — “ _Hux,”_ he whispers, and makes as if to reach for him — but a second later something seems to overtake him, and he turns sharply away. _“No”:_ a growl in a voice that is Ren’s and yet not his at all.

Hux turns to the nurses and droids, hovering cautiously some distance behind him. “Leave us.”

They do.

Ren shifts, hands moving restlessly, eyes darting about — he murmurs continually, and Hux hears snatches of words: “Snoke,” again, over and over, and “light,” and “weak” — “failed — “weak” —

“Kylo. What’s wrong?” Hux comes to stand at Ren’s side, his shadow falling on the bedcovers. “Are you in pain?”

“No.” Ren’s voice low, his eyes a caged predator’s. “Not in pain.”

“What’s the problem, then?” Hux crouches so he’s roughly at Ren’s eye-level; he speaks more softly now. “Will you tell me what’s wrong?”

“The light.” Ren’s answer is immediate, definite: but he shifts, seeming to strain against invisible bonds. Hux catches his eye, and there, again — the look of something trapped and fighting to get out.

“The light,” Hux repeats. “All right. Can you explain a little more, Kylo? I’d like to help,” he says, keeping his voice calm and level. “Tell me what’s wrong and I will try to help you.”

“The light is growing strong again,” Ren replies, his voice a raw whisper. His eyes flick nervously around, as if he fears being eavesdropped upon —  _and maybe,_ Hux realises, _maybe that’s not so far off._ He doesn’t know how Snoke’s powers work: for all he knows, the Supreme Leader could have a direct line to Ren’s every move, his every word, his every thought…Hux shudders.

“And why is that, Ren? Do you know why this is happening?” Hux asks him.

Ren nods. “I am too weak,” he repeats, automaton-like: but there is real fear in his eyes. “Snoke will make me strong again,” he says dully. “My training — my training —”

He breaks off abruptly. He pauses, seeming suspended in time — and then all at once his face crumples. His forehead creases in agony, his full mouth twists miserably: a great gasp escapes him and it’s like a dam has broken. _“I can’t,”_ he chokes out. _“Oh —_ I can’t —”

And he starts to sob.

Hux watches, dumbfounded. Tears course down Ren’s pale cheeks, his dark liquid eyes overflowing. His shoulders shake mightily and his face is a portrait of anguish. Wordlessly he pleads with Hux, his eyes full of despair: _Please. Do something._

Hux does something.

He takes a careful seat on the edge of Ren’s bed and he lays a hand on his arm.

Ren trembles. His shoulders give a violent shake.

“Kylo,” Hux says quietly, keeping his hand firmly where it is. “Kylo.”

Ren’s eyes fly shut. He shudders. “Hux,” he says, strangled, sounding very far away. His face contorts. “ _Hux —_ ”

Carefully and deliberately, Hux places his other hand on Ren’s other arm. Ren takes in a sharp breath. He arches, seeming to strain away from and toward Hux’s touch all at once: _I was at war with myself._

Hux moves his hands. Cautious strokes down Ren’s arms, shoulder to elbow and back up again. Ren seems to relax. Slowly, Hux’s hands move again, to Ren’s chest this time. Ren’s eyes, still closed, flutter madly. “Please,” he whispers, his lips barely moving: but it is _his_ voice now, with none of the alien darkness. “Keep going.”

Hux is reassured immensely. “I will.”  He does as Ren asks. He draws his hands gently down and over the planes of Ren’s torso, avoiding his bandaged side, his palms flat against Ren’s skin. “Is this helping?” he asks softly, trying to direct his words to _Ren_ and not to this other side of him, this part of him which is causing him such pain. “Kylo, is this helping?”

“Yes. Yes.” Ren nods vigorously, his eyes still squeezed shut. He’s no longer sobbing. Hux continues, running his hands back up over Ren’s chest, his collarbones, his shoulders, his arms: Ren gives a sigh, and it seems for a moment that he is at peace again, that the worst is over.

All at once his chest heaves: his body seems to make its last stand against — whatever it is that is tormenting him so. He opens his eyes, and the strange violent light is gone from them now, and they are _his_ eyes again. _Kylo’s eyes._

Hux’s hands still, coming to rest on Ren’s shoulders. “Kylo,” he says.

“Hux. Hux.” Ren’s eyes close: his head dips forward onto Hux’s shoulder. He breathes a great shaking sigh of release; and then he lifts his head again, and his eyes are searching and open, and there is nothing Hux can do but reach up, ever so gently, to cup his jaw and kiss him.

Ren sighs, opens his mouth to Hux; Hux’s hand moves from Ren’s face to twine through his hair, and Ren takes a fistful of Hux’s shirt-front to pull him closer. With his free hand Hux goes back to tracing slow lines and circles down Ren’s throat, across his ribs, over his stomach, and Ren leans into his touch.

Hux lays his hand over Ren’s heart, feels it pounding through the skin. He draws slightly back: “What am I feeling right now?” he asks softly, meeting Ren’s eyes.

Ren hesitates. He frowns, his lips parting in concentration. His eyes close for a moment, open again: “You want this,” he breathes, brow furrowed. “You — want this,” he repeats wonderingly.

Hux nods, his eyes fixed on Ren. “I do.”

Ren kisses him again, hard, and breathes Hux’s name against his lips. He shifts over as far as he can on the mattress: “Come here,” he murmurs. “Come closer.”

Grateful that Ren’s wound is on his other side, Hux moves to lay next to him in the pod — which is wide, yes, but not quite comfortable for two grown men of their stature. Ren doesn’t seem to care. Greedily he pulls Hux still closer to him. Painstakingly, fingers clumsy and eyes fixed on Hux’s, he starts unfastening Hux’s jacket.

Hux helps him. The jacket is shrugged off and followed soon to the floor by his sleeping shirt and his boots. Ren pulls him close again and kisses him like he wants to drown in him, his lips lush and pliant under Hux’s. Hux’s teeth graze Ren’s bottom lip and his hands continue to wander, mapping the lines of Ren’s body and the warmth of his skin.

Soon enough Ren moves his own hands to cover Hux’s; he shows him where and how he wants to be touched, and Hux lets him. But when Ren guides his hands to the waistband of his own sleeping pants, Hux pauses.

“Kylo,” he says, looking him in the eyes. He wonders, again, if Ren can hear his heart beating. “Are you sure?”

Ren nods. “Yes. I —” He breaks off, impatient, fumbling for words. “I want you to.”

“Are you _sure?”_   Hux asks again.

Ren’s eyes are dark, full. His colour is high, his hair falling soft around his face. He nods again, and his voice is yearning and sincere: “Please. Please.”

“You’re absolutely certain.”

“Yes.” Ren kisses him, impetuous, earnest. “Touch me. Please.”

Hux obliges. Ren exhales his name.

*

Later Ren lies with his head pillowed on Hux’s chest, his eyes closed and his face utterly at peace. Hux is unstirring, still coming down; he strokes Ren’s dark hair and wonders again and again how they got here. Once again he feels that sense of inevitability: two bodies hurtling toward a singularity. _I suppose we’ve arrived._

And too soon he has to leave. He knows he’s stayed too long, that the nurses will have already begun to worry or grow suspicious, and that every further minute he delays is a minute in which they could arrive, bursting through the medbay doors and shattering this peace they’ve found. Hux sighs. “Kylo,” he says softly, shifting to sit up all the way. “I have to go.”

“Don’t.” Ren clings to him.

“I have to. You know that.” Gently Hux disengages himself from their embrace. “Kylo. Please.”

“More time,” Ren murmurs. “I want more time.”

“I’ve been here too long without checking in with the nurses — they’re going to start to wonder —”

“Not time here,” Ren interrupts. “More time. Before we go to Snoke.”

Hux, re-buttoning his jacket after tugging on his too-big shirt, pauses. “What?”

“The time you bargained for is almost up,” Ren reminds him. “The captain said we’d most likely have three days, remember? Tomorrow will be the third.”

Hux blinks. “You’re right.” He’d almost forgotten.

“I’m not ready yet.” Ren’s voice is unsteady. “I — this happened tonight because…because the darkness in me — Snoke’s influence — was fighting off the light. Like white blood cells will fight off an infection. Do you understand?” he asks all in a rush.

Hux frowns. “No. No, I don’t.” Jacket fastened, he locates his boots and sits down in his chair to put them on. “How do you know that’s what happened, Ren?”

Ren lowers his eyes. “I don’t. I just — it’s the only thing that makes sense.” He looks up at Hux again, and quickly looks away in shame. “It has to be.”

 _Oh._ Hux flushes. “I see.”

“Yes.” Ren clears his throat. “I allowed the light in me to come forward. I let it overtake me,” he says softly. “I _let it,_ Hux. I wanted it to. You must understand that.” His eyes beseech him.

Hux looks at him for a long, long moment. Finally he speaks.

“We’ll both be punished for this, you know,” he says quietly.

Ren nods. “I know.”

“I’ll see what I can do.”

*

Hux returns, defeated, an hour later. Ren has fallen asleep and Hux is loath to wake him, dreading what his reaction will be: he has no good news this time.

He sits down, as gently as he can, next to Ren on the bed. “Kylo.” No response. He lays a hand on his arm: “Kylo, wake up.”

Ren’s eyes flutter open. “Hux.” He blinks, shakes his head: “What is it?”

Hux hesitates. Ren frowns, comprehension dawning. “The captain can’t delay any longer,” he guesses.

Hux nods. “She said Snoke sent a message — he was displeased with her for taking this extra time already. She explained to him that your health was at risk, that you weren’t fit to be brought to him yet, but he dismissed her warning. He told her not to delay any further, no matter how poorly you were doing.” He winces. “He’s not happy, Ren. I fear we may have made things worse.”

Ren sighs deeply. He looks down at his hands. “I knew his patience would run out. I’ve failed him already. He won’t stand for my weakness any longer.”

“I’m sorry.” Hux doesn’t know what else to say.

“ _No,_ Hux,” Ren says at once. “You must understand — it’s not you. I made a choice,” he insists. “Or else it was made for me.” He struggles for words. “An old man on Jakku — he told me I couldn’t deny the truth that was my family.” Ren takes a breath. “Even Vader rejected the Sith in the end,” he says quietly.

Hux is astonished. “So — what will you do? Defy Snoke? Go…home?” he stammers.

Ren is silent for a moment. “I don’t know.”

“The captain said we’d be arriving at Snoke’s headquarters in a matter of hours,” Hux tells him reluctantly. “Before dawn.”

Fear flits across Ren’s face — and is swiftly replaced by something else, something darker. His face contorts as if he’s in pain, and then settles, determined. There is something ugly in his eyes. He nods tightly.

“Will you be ready?” Hux asks him carefully.

“For what?”

“Whatever happens.”

“No,” Ren says, flat. “Of course not.”

“What will he do to you? If he finds out?”

“ _When_ he finds out,” Ren corrects. Hux flinches. “I don’t know.”

Ren’s eyes fix on the wall ahead, but they seem to be seeing something much further away. A shiver runs through him.

“I don’t know.”

*

They land at dawn.

When they are in range, Snoke’s mobile command centre comes into view, its cloaking shields deactivating as they approach, so that it appears seemingly out of the blackness of space — an old, sleek ship, not quite Imperial in design, small and still menacing. Hux is on the bridge when they dock. He watches with a kind of detached dread as the pilots guide the shuttle to the landing pad, and when they touch down, he closes his eyes. _Our time is up._

A lieutenant comes to find him: “Sir, you’re needed in the medbay.”

He goes to the medbay.

Ren is helped out of bed by the nurses. He sways on his feet — he hasn’t stood in days. Clothes are found for him, simple garments like Hux’s own; Hux turns his back as they undress and dress him. When he’s ready the nurses melt away and Ren and Hux are left alone.

Ren clears his throat softly. Hux turns to him.

“Are you ready?” he asks Ren.

Ren stands, hesitant, one hand on the wall for support. His chest rises and falls rapidly, as if just standing and being dressed have exhausted him. “I — I need help,” he says. He won’t look Hux in the eye.

Hux goes to his side. He puts out an arm, awkwardly, delicately — Ren takes it and leans into him, sighs and lets his weight be supported. “Thank you.”

“Mm.” Hux makes an effort to smile, and fails. “Come along.”

Together, slowly, they leave the medbay and make their way to disembark — they are the only ones to leave the ship, as per the Supreme Leader’s orders. Hux helps Ren down the gangway: it folds up behind them with a great clatter, and then they are left standing in the dark decrepit hangar, alone.

Ren looks around him and shivers. He closes his eyes, his grip on Hux’s arm tightening slightly.

“Where do we go?” Hux asks him, after a moment. His voice echoes.

Ren opens his eyes. “This way.”

Hux can only assume Ren is being guided by the Force, by Snoke himself, for he can’t discern any pattern to the route on which Ren leads him. Ren walks quickly, though it clearly causes him pain: more than once Hux urges him to slow down, but Ren doesn’t heed him — his pace is unrelenting, his eyes fixed high and straight ahead of him as he takes them around corner after corner, through the darkened, sinister halls of the ship.

All at once Ren stops in front of a door that is hardly discernible from the black wall into which it is set. “Here.”

He sways: his face is pale. Hux steadies him. “You’re certain?”

Ren swallows. “Yes.”

His fear is tangible, hanging in the air between them. He turns his head and finally looks at Hux. “I’m frightened,” he says bluntly.

 _His eyes._ They have lost their foreign hollow look, the awful distance of before, and now they search Hux’s face desperately: “What’s going to happen to me?” Ren asks him.

“I don’t know.” Hux can only be honest.

“Will you stay?” Ren pleads.

They both know Hux can’t follow him through that door. Hux nods. “I’ll stay.”

Ren nods and swallows hard. His fingers are a vise on Hux’s arm.

Hux puts a hand to Ren’s cheek, careful of the healing gash. Ren closes his eyes like he’s waiting for a benediction, and Hux kisses him.

From within: a thundering, the sound of earth moving. A low sonorous hiss, Snoke’s voice terribly familiar: “Kylo Ren.”

Ren pulls back. He is shaking.

“Go,” Hux says softly.

Ren nods, bleakly determined. He turns his back on Hux and steps up to the door. It slides open for him with a groan. He steps through to blackness — he doesn’t glance back before it swallows him up.

The door closes.

Hux waits.

*

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have a pathological aversion to closure, I don't know what else to tell you. Come yell at me, if you'd like, on my [main blog](http://abernathae.tumblr.com) or my [Star Wars blog](http://huxes.tumblr.com)! ;)
> 
> [obviouslyelementary](http://archiveofourown.org/users/obviouslyelementary/pseuds/obviouslyelementary), I hope this filled your prompt satisfactorily; thanks again for the inspiration. And thanks to you all for reading, commenting, leaving kudos, etc. — it really means a lot. ❤︎


End file.
